


50 Ways to Kill Your Boss

by DARWIN51



Category: Original Work
Genre: Absurdist Humor, Comedy, Comic Violence, Dark Comedy, Dark Humor, Everyone's gay, Gay Characters, Gen, LGBT, Lesbian, Original work - Freeform, absurdist, kill your boss, original - Freeform, original comedy, very much a just for fun story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DARWIN51/pseuds/DARWIN51
Summary: Jay is a new hire at a hotel where they kill theit boss every day.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Orientation

Jay stepped into the hotel, crossing off a line on his bucket list that said "step in something worse than gum".

He had accepted his fate.

And he was fairly sure he wouldn't make it out of this hotel alive.

He breathed in the slightly green-tinted air and flipped off the pirate statue at the front door. Then he caught a whiff of the kitchen.

"gas mask" was added to his shopping list.

Behind the front desk sat a young, fresh, human manifestation of a nintendog, looking at Jay eagerly. And drooling a little.

Jay debated throwing a frisbee to see if this kid would chase it, but decided against it.

"Hi, I'm Jay, I was hired via Grindr." He said, holding out his hand for a handshake.

The kid licked it.

"Jay, my man!" Another man with shaggy surfer hair approached, wearing a janitor's jumpsuit and eating a carrot.

"Person I don't know!" Jay greeted with equal enthusiasm.

"You the new victim? I totally meant to say employee." He totally didn't.

"I'm the new victim." Jay confirmed.

"That's the spirit! Welcome to employment at Sea Chantey Coastal Resort patent pending! Lemme show you around. I'm Brock" Said the guy who looked exactly like the name Brock. "Manager of custodial fancy names that make me sound like not a janitor. This kid's not important."

The kid behind the desk protested. "I'm Kyle and I'm about to be promoted to Events Coordinator!"

"He can't see the future." Brock laughed, leading Jay away. "Only Oprah can. Now let's meet everyone in the wonderful Sea Chanty hotel."

Jay applied sunscreen, frog repellent, and considered a haz-mat suit before following Brock down the hall towards the elevators.

The elevators opened to reveal a couple making out in the back of the elevator. They were dressed like secret agents. "This is Baxter, he's the hotel's lawyer and self-proclaimed law enforcement. He carries a taser and a stick of Hubba Bubba. Don’t ask why those don't mix. Also, he's really into Monaco."

"Oh, you like to travel?" Jay asked.

"That's Monaco." Brock pointed to the woman in high heels and a fancy dress like she was out clubbing. They were still making out. "They're married. And she's the manager."

"Of the hotel?"

"Moving on." Brock led Jay away from the elevators entirely and up the stairs.

The stairwell was lined with antique paintings and Jonas Brothers posters, with lipstick smudges and devil horns (on the antiques).

They emerged on the third floor and almost collided with a smiling woman wearing motor oil and a lab coat. Her natural disaster of brown hair was held back with a produce-section twist tie, and a pair of binoculars was nested into her hair. The mischievous glint in her brown eyes told Jay she probably wasn't supposed to be on that floor. Or in any place involving customer service or children.

"How much does a polar bear weigh?" She asked Jay directly, her weird yet charming grin widening.

"Um, how much?" Jay wasn't sure if this was a joke or if she was actually testing the weight of the Sea Chantey floors.

Just based on this introduction and that paragraph of detail any reader probably skipped over, she seemed like the type who would find a way to get a polar bear into the hotel.

"Enough to break the ice. Hi, I'm Marley." She picked his hand up from his side and shook it heartily.

"Like the dog." Brock added helpfully.

"No relation." Marley said even more helpfully, and still shaking Jay's hand. Jay noticed she was wearing a zip tie as a bracelet, and it was surprisingly fashionable.

"I thought we revoked your access to the maid's lounge, Marley." Brock said.

She just winked at him, finally letting go of Jay's hand.

"So this is Marley, she's our mechanic-"

"Symphonic Orchestra Conductor." Marley said.

"…Mechanic."

"And the official Rabbi for Joe's Crab Shack."

"Hah." Jay chuckled.

"I'm not kidding."

"Yes she is."

"I'm very confused." Jay said.

"She's kidding." Brock said.

"Am I?"

"For the sake of advancing the plot and getting out of this ridiculous interaction, why aren't you allowed in the maid's lounge?" Jay asked.

"For the sake of NOT letting the writer advance so easily, I'm not going to answer that." Brock said.

"That's fair." Marley said, slithering past them and down the stairs.

Brock started off down the hall of the third floor, and Jay trotted behind him.

"She was probably flirting with Cameron again. To no luck, I'm sure."

"Some lucky guy." Jay muttered.

Brock swiped his crayon on a door marked "Private Property, Parking Restricted, Violators Will be Made to Walk The Plank (Or Wheel The Plank, or Hop, So as Not to Exclude Anyone Missing One or More Legs)" Brock swung the door open to reveal a modest break room with a nice ocean view. The end of a tied-sheet escape rope was slung over the window ledge.

Two women sat at a small card table, signing birthday cards, as one does at a card table.

"Jay, this is Claire, who loves me very much-" Brock started.

"Asswipe." Claire muttered.

"And this is Cameron, whom everyone thinks is straight but Marley openly hopes is gay although no one can tell if Marley is flirting or just playing-"

"She's just playing around." Cameron said.

"She's definitely flirting." Brock grinned. "Anyways, no one's really sure of Cameron's sexuality so we watch her life like a sad reality show."

"That's true." Cameron said.

"Claire, Cameron, this is Jay, our newest Walrus-"

"Employee." Jay corrected.

"-employee, here at Sea Chantey Resort."

"Nice to meet you." Cameron said.

"It you die on a Tuesday, I'm not cleaning it up." Claire responded.

"Was Marley just in here?" Brock asked.

"Noo," Claire said sarcastically. "She was just on the third floor for… you know what? I could literally say anything right now and it would make sense that Marley was doing that."

"What did she do to you?" Brock addressed Cameron.

"Nothing. She invented a mind-reading hat."

"The Sorting Hat." Jay said knowingly.

"Less judgmental." Cameron said. "It's the updated version of the mind-reading sock."

"There's no way her inventions actually work." Claire said. "She didn't even finish high school."

"I kind of liked the sock." Brock said.

"Nobody values your opinion." Claire said.

"Ha ha let's move on." Brock said with a straight face, guiding Jay away from the doorway.

He led Jay to the elevator and yelled at the closed elevator doors until they opened. "Right this way." He guided Jay.

"Elevator, to the roof." Brock instructed.

"Asswipe." The elevator responded in a mechanical voice with a slight pinecone accent.

The buttons for floors were marked with things like "The Third Floor (Down, Marley)" and "Narnia" and "10". They weren't all buttons, either. Jay reached out to touch one, and it bit him.

The doors opened on the roof, empty aside from some typical roof fixtures and a layer of stones for walking on. A four-foot brick ledge surrounded all but one side, the side facing the ocean. There was a small wooden ramp leading off the edge. 

"Careful of that side, and don't fall off the roof. It goes down at least one and-a-half feet." Brock patted Jay's shoulder and walked past him.

A man in a blue shirt with a carrot-orange tie was duct-taped to a chair in the middle of the roof, looking scared.

"Um, what's this?" Jay asked, startled.

"Oh, that's our boss, Wilson Perry."

"Boss? You mean he's my boss, too?"

"...Yeah, I guess."

"Mfmhh" Perry said.

"Nice to meet you too, sir."

Wilson Perry scrunched his Lorne-Michaels-ish face, but didn't try to break free. He was pretty chill about it.

"Hey, um…" Brock thought for a minute, scratching his chin. There was a large mosquito bite there. "You got any skateboards with you, Jay-man?"

Jay wondered where he would possibly keep skateboards on his person. "No."

"That's alright." Brock dug deep into his pockets.

"You have skateboards in your pockets?"

Brock laughed. "You think I fit SKATEBOARDS in my pockets?" He said, pulling out a literal jet engine. He also produced a blow torch, and welded the jet engine to Perry's chair. Perry just shrugged.

Brock pointed the chair out towards the ocean.

"Any last words?" Brock asked, peeling back the duct tape from Perry's mouth.

Perry cleared his throat, and pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket with his teeth. Brock held up a desk lamp so Perry could read better. Perry unfolded the paper in front of him, clearing his throat once more. "No." He read.

"You heard the man." Brock said. "Leggo." He lit the engine.

Nothing happened.

Brock took out the cartridge and blew on it. He put it back in, and lit it again. Wilson Perry went soaring off into the sky in a beautiful arc of flames, which, far above ocean, produced a series of colorful, chest-thumping explosions before raining down into the ocean in a scatter of ashes, fluttering quietly to break apart in the expansive sea below.

"Wow!" Marley had joined them, and was looking through her binoculars. "I didn't know a spiral fracture could be inflicted on the entire occipital lobe!"

"Swag." Brock said.

"Did… did you just KILL our boss!?" Jay asked, panicking.

"Yuh. We do it every day, did you like, not read the title of the story, Jay-O?"

"I did, but I kinda figured it would be realistic, at least in the slightest. You know, maybe like a Monty Python or an Angie Tribeca, something that at least resembles reality."

"Welcome to the spoof genre, my friend. Spoof will spoof whatever it wants to spoofing spoof."

"You split an infinitive."

"Shit. Well, I'll see you at work tomorrow. Bright n' Early."

"What time?"

"No no, Brighton Early, he's expected to be staying here tomorrow. He's John Early's third cousin, and a bit of a dumpster fire, if you catch my drift."

"Yeah." Jay said, as Brock threw a bucket of water at Jay's head. "Ow!"

"Dude, when I say "catch my drift", I assume I can trust you to catch the drift!" Brock was clearly distressed, now trying to put the water back into the bucket.

"So he's a wreck?"

"No, a pyromaniac. What the hell did you think "dumpster fire" meant?"

  * _Death by rockets._




	2. A (quote) "typical day" (end quote)

"Welcome to Sea Chantey, can I get you a towel?" Jay addressed his reflection in his mirror.

His reflection did not answer, much to his surprise.

Today, he was pool boy, which is about two degrees down from "human".

"Yarr, welcome aboard Sea Chantey, can I get ye a rag?" He tried. "No, too accurate"

A strong gust of wind came in off the sea, turned his doorknob, and opened the door for him. Jay thanked the gust.

The seventh floor was for employees' living quarters. Or, "bunks", in nautical terms. Or, "A moneymaking opportunity", in lawsuit terms.

Jay stepped out into the hall and almost stepped on an old 8-track player ripped right out of a car. It was playing an Oly Gunghu Fiest song.

"Holy bean festival…" Marley sang as she rolled by on one of those flat scooters from gym class, propelling herself with a fire extinguisher.

Pretty much what Jay would expect from someone who uses "How much does a polar bear weigh" as a pickup line.

"Hello, I am your spirit guide." Said a ghost giraffe.

Jay immediately put down the fruit loops.

Marley rolled by again, this time singing "Jump" by Kris Kross, even though Oly Gunghu Fiest was still playing.

Jay dodged the traffic cones she had set up down the hall, and found Brock's room. He knew it was Brock's room because the door was just a shanty mat and Brock was standing in the doorway waving to him.

"Jay, my man. You want some fruit loops?"

"Gosh, no."

"Okay, dude. I was just doing my morning workout routine." He returned to the corner where he was playing Wii Boxing.

"I'm working as a pool boy today." Jay said.

"That's great, man. Life preservers are in the deck box next to the pool. Give the bear $10 and he'll let you use one. You're gonna need it."

"What?"

"Oh, and don't answer the door for anyone!"

"Why not?"

"It's always a landshark, man. All the supplies you'll need to survive in this hotel are in that pack over there. I made one for you last night."

Jay picked up the drawstring pack labeled: "James K Polk Middle School"

"In there you got your Night Remover,"

Jay pulled out a flashlight.

"your Word Transporter,"

Jay pulled out a walkie-talkie.

"and your Why Didn't I Think Of That"

Jay pulled out the greatest invention of all time.

"There should be one more thing in there."

Jay dug deep and pulled out a rabbit.

"No, not that."

He found the last item. "A spinning plastic sandwich on a string." He declared, catching on to Brock's terminology.

"What the hell are you talking about? That's a yo-yo." Brock said, still playing Wii Boxing, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging punches. "You're gonna need it."

"What for?"

"You'll know. Trust me, you'll know."

Jay then left the room because Brock had been knocked out cold by the game and was lying on the floor, unconscious.

In the hallway, Jay looked around but Marley seemed to have disappeared. When he looked back down the other end of the hallway, however, he froze in place.

Claire came out and turned up the thermostat, and Jay was unfrozen.

But his heart pounded in his ears when he looked towards the end of the hall and saw what he could only assume was a ghost.

Venkman came in and blasted Slimer out of the way with a proton stream.

Giving Jay a perfect view of the ghost he thought he saw… Wilson Perry. He approached slowly.

"Sir, I… I thought you died in the last chapter?"

"Yes." Perry said. "And I have 49 more times to go."

"CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!" Came a voice from down the hall. Baxter had taken over Marley's scooter-extinguisher contraption and was rolling down the hall at about 2mph (3 kilometers per hour) surrounded by a stampede of ants.

"Yesss!" Marley cheered from the other end of the hall. "I trained those ants! I am Ant Ma'am!"

Wilson Perry relaxed back in a chair, had his shoes shined, and beat all levels of Candy Crush in the time it took Baxter to reach the end of the hall, at which point, Baxter blasted the fire extinguisher in Perry's face for a solid 5 minutes, basically defying the laws of fire extinguishers.

"Wow, he's gonna be so frozen." Cameron said (with glee). She and Claire had gathered around with Marley, Brock, and Monaco, eating gummy worms and watching the show.

"Not quite, babe." Marley elbowed Cameron gently. "It's not gonna freeze him, it's just dispersing the oxygen."

Baxter stopped spraying, and Perry sat in the chair, very much dead, his face white, but with a smile because c'mon, he had beaten Candy Crush.

"Oh yes." Baxter said, removing a pair of sunglasses to reveal another pair of sunglasses beneath them. He removed those to reveal one of the flimsy plastic strip glasses you get when you leave the optometrist. But he was rockin' em.

"So what's the actual cause of death here?" Cameron asked.

"Life is always the cause of death…" Marley mused.

Brock instantly drowned from how deep that statement was.

"Oh, but asphyxiation, that's what happened right here." She waved her hand at Perry. "Dispersal of oxygen."

Everyone kind of filed away because that wasn't as interesting as they had hoped.

Baxter glared at Marley, which absolutely no one caught, because of his shades.

"He was frozen!" Marley declared, which is a total lie, but she was trying to pick up the mood.

"Yass." Claire cheered.

Monaco attempted a somersault, in which she just kind of fell to the side.

Baxter blew on his finger gun, which smoked a little.

"Sexaay." Marley said to him. She took the fire extinguisher from him, "We're gonna need to send this to get refilled, though. Safety first."

  1. Asphyxiation. 




	3. Death By Balloons

Once Marley had finished her Jillian-Michaels-meets-fire-extinguisher workout routine, she headed back to the basement to work on one of various dangerous and quite ineffective inventions.

The mind-reading sock was in a state of disrepair after she tried it on a hotel guest, who stepped in a puddle and was viciously attacked by seagulls at the same time, the former of which electrocuted him and led to his death of course, the latter of which amused Marley to a great extent.

She chuckled at the memory of the man's final moments, then remembered what her father told her about "ethics".

But he was struck by lightning many years ago, so, by the Tragedy Osmosis Theorem that she invented just now, she was allowed to laugh at people being electrocuted.

She opened a rusted metal locker in her workshop that housed a number of life preservers stolen from the lifeguard's station.

Okay, maybe she does have a problem with finding death funny, but if you clicked on this story, so do you, you sick fuck.

But also inside the locker were various photos. Granted, many of the photos were of Cameron, but there were also a few of George Carlin, Rachel Maddow, the band Rusted Root, Doogie Howser, and a pet spider she once had for 2 days. And a picture of The Greatest Invention of All Time.

Don't try and figure it out, you're not gonna figure it out.

"WHAT is that smell?" Claire asked loudly, stepping into Marley's workshop.

Marley straightened quickly and shut the metal locker. "Teamwork." She responded automatically.

"With who? Your multiple personalities?" Claire picked up a part for the mind-reading hat that Marley had been working on for the past week.

"Why are you being mean to me?"

"Whatchya working on, George Jetson?"

Marley tried to lift the hat out of Claire's hands. "I identify with Elroy."

"Lemme see it."

"I promise you, you will break it."

"You don't know that." Claire protested, but she let go of the dog anyway.

"Why-" Marley began, but realized there were more fragile inventions near Claire, and she scooped them away. "Why did you come down here?"

"My porcupine ran away."

"Well Jesus, go get it!"

"I'm kidding! You're very… what's the word?" Claire pondered.

"Gullible."

"Please, don't make up words. Anyways, especially with the way you act around Cameron. It's very…"

"Ostentatious?" Marley bit her thumbnail and tugged at her jacket, wishing Claire would leave her alone.

"No, no. What's the word for something that's characterized by or given to pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others?" Claire said.

"Dragonball."

"Yes! That's it."

"I'm just playing around with Cameron, I don't mean anything by it." Marley said, the words making her chest tighten painfully.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"Shit, sorry." Marley realized her Frog Laser was pointing right at the mailman in the doorway. He set down a package and put his hands up, slowly backing away.

"Listen, especially with this new guy Jay around, Monaco says there's gonna be a lot of changes. Plus, Jay still thinks he's an employee. He doesn't know what he's really here for." Claire said.

"I was wondering why he hasn't run away."

"Marley, sit. Listen."

"I'm not a dog."

"You're named after a dog."

"I came before the dog!"

"You keep trying to be something more to Cameron. You're just the Queer Engineer, alright? Keep it that way."

"On- only I'm allowed to call myself that." Marley stuttered, suddenly hating the nickname she had given herself. "That's… that's just who I am. I flirt with everyone." She briefly faked a smile and put on her welding mask so Claire couldn't see her face anymore. "Stick around if you want to be exposed to 4,000 millirems of radioactivity right now. I wouldn't if I were you, though." She powered up a machine that couldn't really produce 4,000 millirems of radioactivity. Yet.

"I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound kosher." Claire backed away.

"Oh baby, it's definitely not!" Marley cackled until Claire was out of earshot, then she powered the machine down and pulled off the mask, sliding into a chair.

~//~

"Aaand 3… 2… light it!" Brock cried. Jay held a lighter up to Kyle's butt (the nintendog kid from Chapter 1) as he slept in the lounge.

A confettiball explosion fart followed, just as Brock expected.

"I thought there was going to be a fireball?" Jay said.

"The laws of physics generally cease to exist within the walls of the Sea Chantey, not just above the grits on our stove." Brock boasted. "Besides, lighting your farts is dangerous, we don't fuck with that. That's just not who we are."

"I'm not quite sure who you are."

At that moment, the fire alarms started blaring loudly.

"Brighton!" Brock shouted, darting for the front desk.

The lobby was filled with smoke. "Everybody evacuate!" Said the fire alarm. "Get your asses out on the motherfuckin' sidewalk!"

"We should go." Brock grabbed Jay's arm. Kyle got up and began barking, following them out.

"Let's gooo!" The fire alarm continued. "Move it, move it! Left, left, left right left right everything you want in a box to the left right left!"

Once outside, Monaco did a head count. Which, of course, didn't include the guests. They could find their own way out. "Everybody in a single file line!"

"Jay cut me!" Brock shouted.

The fire department engines and ladder truck rolled up and quickly began debating whether the hotel was worth saving.

"Where's Marley!?" Monaco asked. "She owes me $15, go look for her!" She shouted, quite afraid she would never see that $15 again.

Cameron broke away from the line, being probably the only one who actually cared.

"Don't die!" Claire called after her. "…ish."

Cameron ran around the back of the building, the fire alarm blaring through the windows.

"Pop it, lock it, polka dot it…"

Cameron resisted the urge to follow the fire alarm's urgent instruction. She had a feeling she knew where Marley might be.

"zig-zag, cross the floor, shuffle in diagonal…"

Sure enough, around the back of the Sea Chantey, below the boardwalk was a figure leaning against one of the boardwalk posts.

Next to the lawn decoration cutout figure, sat Marley, criss cross in the sand, blowing bubbles.

"Marley!" Cameron ran over, sliding in the sand once she got close. She ripped the bubble wand out of Marley's hands just as she blew another bubble. "What are you doing, I thought you quit blowing!"

"I still go back to it sometimes. For comfort." She sounded distant.

"Well, stop! This is so bad for your health!"

Marley stared blankly at her empty hand where the bubble wand had been. "What am I doing?" She whispered theatrically.

Cameron stood up and held her hand out. "C'mon. I know what'll make you feel better. Let's take a walk on the boardwalk."

Marley reluctantly took Cam's hand. Once they stood up, Cameron didn't let go. They walked out onto the boardwalk, enjoying the smell of smoke coming from their place of employment.

"Hey kids, it's free ice cream day!" A young man on the boardwalk offered them ice cream cones.

"Stranger Danger." Cameron swatted him away.

"Hey, hey c'mere. It's "free balloon day", if you know what I mean." Some old scraggly guy stood at the back of a truck. "They're in here."

"Hella." Cameron said, following him into the van and emerging half a second later with a fist full of balloons. "Thanks, man!"

Sitting at the end of the boardwalk in a lawn chair was none other than Wilson Perry. He usually came out here when the hotel was on fire.

Cameron gave a series of elaborate hand gestures and complicated sign language at Marley, gesturing between the balloons and the chair. "then we tie the balloons to the chair." She finished out loud.

Marley nodded, and they snuck up behind Perry, tied the balloons to the chair, set up an Instagram Live video stream of it, and stepped back.

But balloons can't lift a man off the ground, so he stayed there and got hit by a tanker that took off the end of the dock.

  1. Death by balloons?




	4. Fire Control

"The cause of the fire was determined to be a combination of oxygen, fuel, and heat." Baxter had gathered everyone in the conference room, and was using a pointer stick to show off his chart of a classic fire triangle he probably got from google images.

"Oh wooowww." Brock said, but he was watching March Madness.

""We need to make sure that this doesn't happen again." Baxter said. "So I've devised a plan to remove all the oxygen from the hotel." He removed the first chart to reveal his plan on a new colorful posterboard.

Everyone stared in uncomfortable silence.

"I see I've blown your minds."

"There are so many reasons that's bad." Jay said.

"Okay, Plan B." Baxter removed that poster to reveal a pop-up ad for birth control. He x-ed out of that to reveal the Plan C poster. "We remove all the fuel."

"Can't do that"

"Plan D: Remove all the heat."

"Physically impossible"

"Do we know what caused the fire?" Claire asked.

"I already said the fire triangle--"

"Actually, it's a tetrahedron." Jay stood now on the other side of the room, with his own chart and pointer.

"The fire came from one of the guests." Monaco said, standing up to take over.

"Let's hold a trial." Baxter said.

"Let's definitely not do that. The fire is not why I called this meeting, Baxter." Monaco addresses everyone, "The cause of the fire is now a moot point in the story, and has lost the reader's interest at least 5 mentions ago. The real reason we're all here is to announce the promotion of one of our employees."

"Yesss." Kyle said. "It's gonna be me."

"Calm down there, NSYNC. She didn't say who it was yet." Claire said.

"It's certainly not Ed Lover." Brock said, folding his hands behind his head casually.

Everyone stared in confusion.

"…Because he doesn't work here."

Baxter gave Brock a red card for that.

"Hey, guys. I just got the memo about the meeting--" Wilson Perry emerged unwanted and out of nowhere like a Bon Jovi song.

Everyone stood up and threw their folding chairs at him in unison. Perry fell back into a closet and Marley shut the door, trapping Perry with the chairs.

"Kyle, congratulations, you are promoted to Events Coordinator." Monaco said.

  1. _Drowned in folding chairs_



"Wait, that's it?" Jay said. "The climax came and fell in like, 2 sentences!"

Baxter gave him a red card for talking after the chapter had ended.


	5. Perry's Curse (also death by poison blowdarts)

"Hey Jay, we're starting a campfire out on the beach. You wanna join?" Brock asked as Jay was about to head up for bed.

Jay hesitated. He was pretty tired, and he prides himself on not being bribed very easily.

"We're going to have a conversation that is vital to the plot so your attendance is mandatory."

"I don't know…"

"We have s'mores."

"…fine." Jay grabbed his Sea Chantey survival kit and followed Brock out into the hallway.

"I've been meaning to ask, Jay-man. What brought you to the Sea Chantey hotel for work?"

"A bus."

"No, I mean why did you pick here?"

"Oh, I guess I haven't really got any better place to go. I was homeless before this."

"You go to college?" Brock led him down the stairs.

"Yep."

"That explains the homeless part."

"Yeah, the streets are pretty rough. And the sidewalk's not much smoother."

"What about your folks? They didn't want to help out?"

Jay pushed open the door to the outside and they stepped into the grass. "My mother passed away."

"Oh my god, what happened?"

"She held in a sneeze."

"Oh that's awful."

"Yeah, and my father was a God so you know, he wasn't around much."

"Dude, you're a demigod!?"

"Well, I don't believe in God, so now I'm just an orphan."

"We'll, we'll, we'll." Brock said, surprised to find that everyone had shown up at the fire.

"You mean, "well well well." Claire said.

"What did I say?"

"You used apostrophe's in the wrong place."

"So did you."

"Touché."

"Hey guys." Marley ran up. "I got the potato salad." She bent over her knees to catch her breath.

"I got the graham crackers." Kyle held up a box.

"Way to go, kid."

"My name is-" Kyle started

"What?" Eminem said.

"My name is-"

"Who?"

"I give up." Kyle said. "Get out of this fucking story, Eminem." Kyle scooped some potato salad between two Graham Chapman crackers and poked a stick through the middle. He held it over the open flame and it almost immediately slopped into the fire. "Perfect" he said. He took a bite out of the stick.

"Who knows some scary stories?" Marley rubbed her hands together excitedly.

Everyone raised their hand.

"Not about me."

Everyone put their hands down.

"Can somebody explain why we keep killing our boss?" Jay asked.

"I got this." Marley said. "T'was a dark and stormy night…"

"No, I believe it was more of a "scattered showers" type of deal." Brock corrected. 

"Alright… t'was a "scattered showers type of deal"… and _The Minnow_ was rapidly drifting off course, farther out into the sea…"

"Why were they out in rough weather?" Jay asked.

"It was a 3-hour-tour."

"Of what, the waves?"

"Listen Jay, nobody ever questioned it in 50 years, we're not gonna fuckin' start now." Brock said.

"Fine!"

"So anyways, Wilson Perry, Monaco, Baxter, some tourists, and the captain were on a boat in a storm, and they got thrown off course and landed on a large island. For two years they lived there, awaiting rescue, all the while Perry was gradually trying to win Monaco's heart. And he did. They had a thing for quite a while. They lived off the land, hunting and killing the island's surprisingly large population of black bears and deer, until one day they were all arrested for killing protected wildlife."

"…What?"

"Oh, the large island they landed on turned out to be North America, and the ship had originally crashed about 30 miles down shore from their dock, on a nature preserve."

"Wait, what?"

"The point of the story, is that Monaco and Perry have a romantic history." Claire said. "And Perry still occasionally makes moves on Monaco, trying to win her back from Baxter."

"Ew. He looks old enough to be her dad." Jay said.

"She's actually almost 50. Black don't crack." Marley said, briefly kissing a photo of Michelle Obama she just had in her pocket.

"So Perry makes moves on her even though she's with Baxter now?" Jay asked.

"Yeah. I mean, we've gotta have SOME real reason to hate him. It went over well in the focus group." Brock said.

"Also, he's an asshole boss and technically hasn't let any of us go home in years." Cameron added.

"Oh. Yeah I guess that's part of it too." Marley shrugged.

"Wait, what? You mean we can never leave?" Jay panicked.

"But you can check out anytime you like." Marley winked, shooting playful finger guns at him.

Baxter walked up with a tray of tomatoes sliced into thirds. "What's shakin?"

"Minor earthquake." Marley said, pressing one hand to the ground. Everyone waited. "It's passed."

"We were just talking about that time you crashed a boat on an island and your wife fell in love with your boss and now he's kind of a dick." Brock said.

"Oh yeah, that's a good one. Though it does kinda sound like the plot to a really bad backstory."

"We're just filling in Jay."

"Wait, hold the fuck on a minute." Jay said. "Hey Marley, uh, can you get back to the part where WE CAN'T LEAVE?"

"Listen, kid." Baxter said. "Something happened to Perry out there. He's not quite human anymore."

"Yeah, based on the part where you kill him every chapter, I GATHERED."

"Here's what happened, and why we can't leave: During the storm, Perry was knocked overboard. We thought he was gone for sure, but 3 days after we landed at the beach, he washed up during the night. Nobody knows where he was during that time, but he hasn't really been the same since. After our rescue/arrest, he fixed up the Sea Chantey, put a cuss on the place, and the rest is history."

"Actually it's all history." Cameron said.

"But, legend has it that if you kill Perry 1000 times, the cuss will be lifted."

"You mean curse."

"Jesus Christ! We don't use that kind of language around here! Shit, Jay! Shit! Shit! Tits! Ass! Cocksucker!"

"Aw piss, I'm sorry."

"Fucken idiot." Claire muttered.

"Wait, we have to kill him ONE THOUSAND TIMES before I can go home!? I think I might've left the milk out!"

"Relax, we've already killed him 950 times before you got here." Marley said, twisting something between her fingers. "Four since you got here. And I'm working on number 955 right here."

Jay was about to get up and run when he felt a tingling on the back of his neck.

"Daddy long leg." Marley said, picking up the spider off the back of Jay's neck.

"Hello." A voice made them all jump. They turned to see a shadowy figure rise from the sand.

"Fuck, it's the Great Pumpkin!" Marley got up and ran out into the waves.

Wilson Perry stepped into the firelight. "I see you found your way to the campfire, Jay."

"Um, yes sir."

"It would be a shame if someone… kicked sand onto it."

"What?"

Perry half-assedly kicked some sand at the fire and ignored the red squiggly line under the word "assedly"

The fire wavered a little but quickly grew back.

"Yeah, I guess that was a little bit of a shame."

"Good." Perry said.

Suddenly, something stuck between his eyes and he tottered and fell nose-first into the sand.

"Ye-heah!" Marley called from the water, triumphantly holding a straw. "955!"

"Oh, by the way Jay," Baxter started, "Legend has it that--"

"What legend?"

"Huh?"

"You've used that phrase, "legend has it" twice now. What legend?"

Everyone frowned at Jay. "Listen, kid. Nobody ever asks "what legend" in any story or movie or anything, okay? It's just a legend. Live with it."

"But if you really needed to know, the legend is a book." Cameron said.

"Yeah. It's upstairs. Anyway, there's a list of ways you have to kill him. Many are simple, but some are elaborate and complicated, requiring insane adventure and exploring and inventing new adventures--"

"Use the word "adventure" again. It's exciting." Marley grinned.

"--Adventure and danger and some really twisted and/or stupid shit. We've saved the best for last. So, that's what you're in for."

"I thought we couldn't leave?"

"OH MY GOD, JAY. Your stupid interruptions are breaking up the dialogue that lays out the rest of the story! Can you shut up!" Claire said.

"Here's how it goes:" Marley looked overjoyed to be the one explaining the whole thing. "Something happened to Perry out at sea, and it gave him weird powers and sort of immortality. He fixed-up a hotel and put a cuss on it, so everyone he employs is stuck here until the cuss is lifted. Also, time doesn't pass in the hotel. So your milk is fine. A while back, we found an old book in the basement that described a cuss similar to what Perry's done to us. The book claims that the only way to lift the cuss is to kill him 1000 times. We can't go further towards civilization, but the ocean and various islands are ours to explore, and we're gonna need them for some of the complicated killing methods described in the book. Most of the kills can be anything, but some are laid out in the book. For example, we will need to travel for killings such as "Lava Statue" or "Impaled by Neptune's Trident", and some we have yet to figure out, like "Re-capitation" and "partial shredding" So you're in for a helluva ride, kid."

Jay processed this. "Okay, but I really just wanted to work in a hotel."

  * _Poison Blowdarts_




	6. Home Run

"Ladies, room 206 is requesting his bed be made." Jay paged the 3rd floor maid's lounge, where Claire and Cameron sat eating ramen. Only there really is no loudspeaker; Jay had crawled through the vents and spoken through the holes in the grate, then crawled back to the desk. "Improv." Jay pumped his fist.

"Why are there no male maids in this story? Doesn't that seem kinda sexist?" Cameron wondered out loud. She's not very bright.

"There are, they're just not important to the story." Claire replied.

The girls got up and headed for 206. "This guy has called us like 5 times now to make his bed."

"I know, and he gives me the creeps."

"It's the Johnny Depp cardboard cutout he keeps around."

"That's probably it."

~//~

The girls arrived at the odd guest's room and ouvred the door.

"Sorry I messed it up again." He said, sitting horizontally on the television. "I just love watching you ladies clean."

"Wow," Claire whispered to Cam. "I can already hear Lester Holt quoting that on a future episode of Dateline."

The girls began cleaning up the mess he had made, like leaving paper towels stapled across the ceiling, removing Perry from the floorboards, and temporarily relocating the turtles living under the bed. They keep getting sent out for stuff like this, it's really time they move. Especially now that they're starting a family--

Cameron grew uneasy watching the guest atop the TV, precariously sipping a Juicy Juice box way too close to the wires. In one of her very, very… (hold up, I'm talking VERY) rare smart moves, Cam reached the broom up to dust the cobwebs off the ceiling, and "accidentally" knocked the light fixture, causing glass to fall and the lightbulb to drop, dangling by its bare wires.

"Oh, dratch."

"What the hell is that?"

"Don't worry, I'll just give the mechanic a call." Cam assured him, earning a weird glance from Claire.

Cameron stepped out into the hall and phoned the basement.

"Marley's Silly String Emporium." was the answer.

"Oh, sorry. I'm trying to call a different Marley." Cameron concluded, even though the phone lines at the hotel were completely internal.

"Hey, it's me."

"Oh! Good, We have a broken light situation on the second floor."

"Cool."

"…Can you fix it?"

"Oh, you want me to--? Ok, got ya. Be right there."

"Hey Marley wait--"

Marley had already hung up. Cam called back quickly.

"TGI Friday's."

"Shoot, sorry, wrong number."

"No, Cam, it's me Marley."

"Oh. I meant to warn you about this guy up here. We got a Code: Cardboard Johnny Depp here."

"Oh shit. I'll be right there." Marley had no idea what this code meant but she wasn't ready to rule out a slip-n-slide involvement.

~//~

Two minutes later, (although I doubt that ~//~ took you two minutes to read, so for you, like four seconds later) Marley burst through the door with the unwavering confidence of a Macy's parade balloon.

"Listen, Stallion." She addressed the man across the room. "You leave these fillies alone."

"And who are you?" He mocked.

"Your worst mare."

Cameron coughed.

"That horse pun SUUUUUUUCKED." Claire booed.

"I think we can leave if you just fix the light--" Cameron said, stepping forward.

"Can you get back to cleaning?" The man shoved a feather duster into Claire's hands.

"I'll handle this guy, babe." Marley said. She turned and shouted across the room, "Hey you, keep your damn hands off her! And her! Both hers!" Marley assumed a fighting stance.

"You wanna fight me?" He stood up about a quarter inch taller.

"Um, well, I was kinda hoping we could just make fighting poses and scare the crap out of each other." She bounced lightly on her toes.

"You don't scare me."

"You should be scared of her." Claire said. "She has sharp tools and chemicals and absolutely NO idea how to do ANYTHING."

"YEAH wait what?"

"She's made it this far in life without somehow killing herself in a freak accident, so I doubt you can do any damage to her." Claire continued.

"Look I'm really happy you're sticking up for me but also I feel insulted? Just get out of here!" Marley whispered to Claire and motioned to the door behind her back.

Claire and Cameron ran past, but the guy reached out and grabbed Claire's arm.

She screamed.

"Hey, get your-- wait, I already used that line. Uh, pick on somebody your own size!"

"Like you?"

"...No, not at all!"

Claire struggled and the guy tightened his grip, making Claire squeal a little.

"Yeah, yes, like me! Pick on somebody like me! Right now, punk!"

"Okay" he let go of Claire and just as quickly grabbed Marley's arm.

Marley winced. "Nice grip, big guy." She waved for Claire and Cameron to run.

"Let's take this outside, huh? I don't wanna get my hotel room all bloody." He said, starting to drag Marley out into the hall.

"Good plan, punk! Less for my ladies to have to clean."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Hey Siri! Text Skull Crusher, and tell him to meet me outside the Sea Chantey with his bat. Forward that to Jerry."

"Haha cool yeah bring friends" Marley laughed nervously. "I'll call my people."

Cameron watched stressfully. "Nobody has to fight anybody, guys." She ran over and tried to pry the guy's hand off Marley.

He slapped her so hard she hit the wall.

Marley yanked her arm out of his grip and instantly began throwing punches. "I'll make you wish you were never born!" She growled, getting between him and Cameron and quickly fighting him back towards the stairwell.

"Are you okay?" Claire helped Cameron to her feet.

"Yeah…" She touched her cheek, and her fingers came away blue. "His nails weren't even dry…"

As the stair doors closed, the elevator opened and Wilson Perry stepped out. "Where's my mechanic?" He said.

"Fighting one of our guests."

"Good."

The elevator opened again, and two big bald guys with scalp tattoos and a baseball bat stepped out. "Hey, have you seen a guy that looks like us, probably beating up someone smaller than him?"

Both girls pointed towards the stair doors.

"Thanks."

"Hey, can I see that for a second?" Claire asked, reaching for the bat. He handed it to her, and she swiftly knocked off Perry's head. "Thanks."

  1. Home Run




	7. Elevators

Despite all the paths two separate bodies can take through the universe and all the moments that lead them to their current position through spacetime, Cameron and Brock managed to walk directly into each other in the lobby.

_SMACK_

Claire had the good fortune of witnessing this incredible collision of individuals, and snapped a pic with her iPhone.

Cameron recovered quickly. "Brock?"

"Saw, dude?"

"Actually, we don't need a saw right now, thank you. We were looking for Marley." Cameron said.

Brock lowered his handsaw. "Oh, she's in her workshop. Have you seen Jay?"

"9th floor."

They tipped their hats and parted ways.

~

"Marley?" Cameron knocked on the doorway of the workshop.

"In here."

Cameron and Claire entered the workshop, gadgets strewn everywhere from various items they were certain Marley had no idea how to put back together. Marley sat at her lab table, screwing or unscrewing something with a screwdriver. "Whaddup?" She grinned. "Are you okay, Cam?"

"Oh, you witnessed the collision too?" Claire asked.

"No, I meant about yesterday. That guy. And the Johnny Depp cardboard cutout. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Claire wanted to say something." Cameron shoved Claire forward.

"Uh, um. Can't believe you're making me do this, Cam." She grumbled. "Um, thanks for like, sticking up for us yesterday. It was really brave of you."

"He was an asshole. He deserved a good Marley-beatin." She made a fist.

"You really beat him up?" Cameron sounded impressed.

"tOtally." Marely emphasized. "For you, my love."

Cameron blushed.

"Anyways, we were gonna grab an early lunch from the hotel restaurant, you want to come with us?" Claire offered, sticking to the plan.

"I would love to, ladies, but this is pretty important." She gestured to the gadget in her hand.

"What is it?"

"Um… well it was part of a vacuum cleaner."

"What is it now?" Cameron asked.

"Broken." Claire answered. Cam glared at her. "Sorry, force of habit."

"It's uh, important."

"Okay, how about meeting us for dinner?"

"Uh, busy then too. Sorry." Marley casually spun her chair, cringing a little.

Claire frowned at her. "There's no way you beat those dudes up."

"I'm like a cockroach."

"For real, what happened? Did they hurt your arm?" Claire noticed Marley holding her arm close to her, and poked it.

"No."

"Stand up."

"Why?"

"They hurt your legs?"

"No!"

"Then stand up!"

Marley stood up slowly. "See?"

Claire poked her side.

"Ow, I'm a cockroach!"

"A cockroach that got her ass kicked."

"Stop touching me!"

"Stop it!" Cameron stepped between them. She looked at Marley. "Did they hurt you yesterday?"

"No!"

"See, Claire?"

"She's lying."

"Aww, are you worried about me?" Marley teased.

"No. I'm just… showing that you're a liar."

"Please, ladies. It's been nice talking to you, but I have work to do." Marley tossed her vacuum cleaner part across the room and picked up the shell of a toaster.

"Wow, what does that do?" Cam tried to make conversation.

"... It crispens bread."

"incredible!"

"It's a toaster, you idiot, they all do that." Claire elbowed her.

"It does other things." Marley said. "Watch this," She popped a frozen waffle in and plugged in the toaster. As soon as she plugged it in though, the lights flickered and an ambient buzzing died down, then started back up again with a kick. An alarm on a wall panel started going off.

"Incredible!" Cameron exclaimed.

Marley had only meant to show them that it also crispens waffles, and had no idea what the alarm was about. She kicked her rolling chair over to the wall, then to her computer.

Cameron and Claire gathered around as Marley checked the security cameras and found the source of the alarm. It was a room with a large indoor pool."Is that the pool?" Claire asked.

"It's A pool…" Marley zoomed in. "It's Perry's private pool."

"He has a private pool?"

"Hence private."

"What are those things in it?" Claire pointed to the screen.

"Dead Perry, and a live wire."

"Why is there a live wire in his pool…?"

"Oh, I put it there for a later extravagant kill involving a prize-winning watermelon and George Lopez. But, I guess when the system rebooted, it sent electricity into that wire that wasn't live before, but is now."

"So you just electrocuted and killed Perry, right now?" Claire asked.

Marley looked at the toaster. "I guess."

"I have to admit, that was kind of a cool trick." Claire said.

"And I have to admit, I really did only mean to crispen the waffle."

  1. _Another kind of electrocution_




	8. Meat Grinder (Jay's first kill!)

"Everybody listen up!" Monaco shouted across the conference room where everyone was already listening up. "We received a request today from Bar-Mitzvah Island, and we need a few of you to sail over there and cater for the night. And one DJ."

"Back up, what's Bar-Mitzvah Island?" Jay asked.

"If you were Jewish, you'd already know about the island."

Jay was not Jewish.

"Our regular chef, Blue, is out tonight. He's feeling a little under the weather. So we need someone with the most rudimentary knowledge of food to take his place. Who here has eaten food before?"

Everyone raised their hand except Brock. "I absorb through cellular osmosis." He said.

"Still counts. Perfect. Brock you're the chef. Jay will be the DJ, because it sounds like your name. Claire and Kyle, waitresses. Marley, you drive." She tossed Marley the keys to the sailboat.

"Yesss!" Marley cheered.

"Also, Perry will be joining you to fill out your quarterly performance evaluations. Sound good?"

"Sounds very good." Brock nodded after thinking it over. "Quarterly really is a nice word. Euphonious, easy on the ears."

"Get to work!"

~

“There’s definitely nothing out here.” Marley said, looking through a telescope on the crow’s nest. Her fight in Chapter 6 resulted in a broken rib which was almost discovered by Cameron and Claire, but she traded it for a spare rib in the kitchen and was feeling much better today.

"But Brock said that there was a secret island out here." Kyle said.

"Well Brock is full of shit."

"Little did she know, that he actually WAS full of shit." Brock said in Marley's ear.

"Gross!" Marley swatted him away.

"Marley, I thought you knew how to get to Bar Mitzvah Island?" Jay inquired. "Now we're lost!?"

"Ya stupid. Bar Mitzvah Island is right over there. We're looking for the Secret Island. We're gonna check it out after the Bar Mitzvah." Marley gestured to "right over there" as being the rocks they were about to hit.

CRUNCH

The ship made an awful screeching sound as it struck the rocks, and Claire made a loud crunching noise when she bit into a Man Dorito.

Fortunately, Kyle didn't have that problem as he was eating a bag of Lady Doritos.

"This is insane!" Jay marveled at the grand buildings of the island.

"This is beautiful." Kyle agreed.

"This is sinking into the ocean at a rate of 4 inches per year due to climate change." Marley joined in, crunching an intersex Dorito.

"I prefer to call it "natural erosion"" Brock said.

~

Two hours later, Jay, Kyle, and Brock were in the kitchen preparing the kebab appetizers for the Bar Mitzvah pre-pre celebration gathering.

Unfortunately, the boys realized how damn tasty the kebabs were (apparently Brock's first time eating food ever) and now faced the imminent problem of they had eaten all of them.

Kyle immediately released a rap album in which the lyrics reveal that he's eaten all the kebabs and murdered his parents at a young age but since it's in a song and considered artistic expression, no one will suspect a thing.

While bopping to the record, Brock said, "Should we try and salvage this job or run away?"

"The word "salvage" made me more hungry." Jay told him.

"The word "fertilizer" makes me hungry." Kyle said.

Brock looked around. "You're a good lad, Kyle. What say you we chop off your arm and use the meat to make more kebabs?"

"…Okay." Kyle agreed, laying his arm on the table.

Brock raised the butcher's knife high.

"Goodbye, arm. At least it'll grow back." Kyle wished his arm a farewell, waving a handkerchief at it with his other hand.

"Hold on what?" Brock said.

"I said, goodbye arm."

"Oh. Ok." Brock raised the knife higher.

"Hold on, what was that part about it growing back?" Jay asked.

"Arms grow back, right?"

"NOope. Negative. Definitely not." Jay said.

"What!? Brock wait!" Kyle begged.

But Brock had already brought the knife down. To his side, because he's a good friend and wouldn't have actually turned his friend into food.

His boss, however…

Jay and Kyle followed Brock's train of thought to Perry, who was sitting in the corner filling out performance reviews.

"Perry! My man. Wilson. Can I call you Willy?" Brock casually strolled over, holding the knife behind his back.

"No."

"Cool. Perry. Say, you wouldn't want to disappoint customers, would you?"

"Of course not."

"Excellent! Neither would we! Sadly, we ate all the--"

"I'll just get on the stove." Perry cut him off, setting down the clipboard and climbing onto the stove.

Kyle chimed in, "Shouldn't he get on the chopping board first, so he'll cook more evenly?"

"Great foresight." Perry commended, climbing down and getting onto the table with the chopping board.

"Actually, I was thinking just go straight for the sausage grinder." Brock admitted.

"Even better." Perry said, sticking his head into the sausage grinder. "It would be excellent if someone could give me a boost."

Kyle and Brock grabbed Perry's legs and lifted them. "Jay, hit the switch!"

"The what?"

"Turn the grinder on!"

Jay was uncomfortable. He hadn't killed Perry yet, and was still INCREDIBLY unnerved by the fact that this man was so casual about being brutally murdered, and that he came back to life somehow every day.

Jay figured this unease was just because he has never met someone who was casual about being brutally murdered before. There's gotta be at least a few of them, right? In the entire world? Real question, because no doubt there are people who are okay with dying, but some sadistic dude (or dudette) is probably okay with going out in a gruesome way, right? Like, a kinky thing? Real question. There's gotta be like, one.

Anyway, Jay looked at the switch with a growing sense of pride. He could be part of this incredible effort to murder a man 1000 times in order to lift a curse cuss.

Jay felt strong pride in his chest. Like that feeling he gets when watching a dog react to their person coming home from the military, or when everyone in the bar starts singing when the Backstreet Boys comes on, even though it wasn't planned and everybody's strangers.

He flipped the switch and the machine's rusted metal shrieked as Perry was slowly pulled in and shredded up into perfectly packaged rolls of meat like Play-Doh, where some of him was finished being packaged before his feet were fully in the machine.

It brought tears to Jay's eyes. That and the sheared-copper smell of blood.

  1. Meat Grinder (Jay's First Kill!) 




	9. Megalodon

The crew working the Bar Mitzvah (Marley, Jay, Brock, Claire, and Kyle) did end up having to spend the night on Bar Mitzvah Island because by the time they cleaned everything up, Marley had had way too much to drink.

So it wasn't until morning that they packed everything back up on the boat and raised anchor. (the Perry-kabobs went over VERY well, by the way. Nobody questioned if it was kosher, but Perry was actually Jewish so that makes it kosher, I believe.)

Marley and Brock were still hell-bent on finding the Secret Island, and after 10 minutes on the open ocean, Jay was bored out of his mind.

"Man, I wish we could break some laws." Jay said, swinging his legs over the edge of the ship.

Marley leaned in close. "We are breaking a law." She grinned. "There's no fire extinguisher on this boat."

"Probably for the best." Brock said, "You have a tendency to set fire extinguishers." As seen in Chapter 2.

"I do. Medically diagnosed Antipyromania. That's why I take Xanax."

"Hey! I'm bored! There's nothing but water for miles and miles!" Ever since killing Perry last night, Jay felt like a real part of the crew. Which meant he could bicker with them, he figured.

"Yeah," Marley said, "miles DOWN. There's so much to do! You ever been SCUBA diving?"

"I've been SCBA diving. It wasn't underwater."

"Well, good, we don't have SCUBA gear here. We have tethers." Marley opened a deckbox and pulled out the end of a long hose. "It's an oxygen line connected to the boat. It's called Snuba diving, and it's a real thing." She told the camera. "Look it up."

"Sheesh, sorry." Jay accepted the line and put on a face mask. "Is it dangerous?"

"No, totally safe. Just like, don't come up too fast, and don't hold your breath at any point, And definitely, don't come up too fast. Like, even a few feet. I'm telling you. Don't come up too fast. You will die."

"I don't think I got all that. Can you show me?"

~

"We're underwater now." Jay established. The water was a nice light blue above them and dark far below them, and a little bit yellow near Kyle's crotch. Various fish swam by, mostly not giving a shit.

"Good. The situation on the boat was rapidly deteriorating." Marley said, somehow managing to talk under water.

"Yeah, how can we talk under water anyway?" Jay asked.

"You said you wanted to break some laws. What better law than physics?"

"Why can't we break regular laws, like cops?"

"Speaking of laws, duck." Marley pushed Jay down lower, away from the boat.

The largest-ass shark you've ever seen, about three times the size of their pirate boat, swam just over their heads, nearly severing their oxygen lines.

Jay was shaken. "How was that speaking of laws!?"

"Did I say laws? I meant Jaws. I thought we were talking about breaking jaws."

Jay looked at the massive figure slowly disappearing beyond into the open water. "That was a megalodon!"

"Yes."

"They're extinct!"

Marley pointed. "No, they're not."

"Holy crap! How is that possible? Was it brought back from extinction or did it survive or what?"

"You ever heard of Dolly the sheep?" Marley asked.

"Wait, you mean someone cloned a megalodon!?"

Marley looked confused. "What? No, I was just asking if you've heard of a sheep, dude. I think megalodons never went extinct. I mean look at how big the fucking ocean is. I mean, look at that! What is that?" She pointed to an ambiguous shape below them, a slightly lighter color than the rest of the water.

They began swimming towards it.

Jay still wasn't over the megalodon thing. As anyone would after nearly being bumped by one. "I thought extinct animal sightings were a conspiracy theory!" Jay said.

"Why?" Kyle asked. "You know what's a REAL conspiracy theory? Scissors."

"You mean scissoring?" Marley grinned. "Rare, I'll give you that. But I've seen it."

"What? No."

"Then what did you mean?" Jay asked.

"Scissors."

"Like, whether or not they exist?"

"I mean scissors!"

"Holy fuck you guys!" Marley called out. She had gotten closer to the ambiguous shape, which was now less ambiguous and more Snoop-shaped. "I think this is the secret island!"

"How can it be an island if it's underwater?" Jay asked.

"Don't try to poke holes in my logic, Jay. Poking holes in things underwater is dangerous for you oxygen-breathers."

The island did look like fun. There appeared to be balloons and party hats and treasure chests. Marley swam down to it and grabbed a balloon.

Jay caught up. "Wow, what do they fill balloons with underwater?"

"More balloons."

"Incredible."

"I'm kidding, it's helium. Jesus." Marley scanned over the small island, frowning. Kyle had already found the playground. "Guys, this isn't the Secret Island." Marley declared.

"What?" Kyle asked, bouncing on a teeter totter tater tot.

"It's just an outpost for Bar Mitzvah island. It's the Bar Mitzvah Island Vacation Home. The real secret island is covered in land mines."

Jay paused. "Wait… so why did we want to go there?"

"Well it's more than just land mines, Jay."

"I feel like land mines kind of negate whatever else is on there."

"I'll show you how to walk on stilts someday, okay?" Marley started gradually ascending back to the boat.

Perry took note of her inclusivity of Jay and her foresight to remember to ascend slowly. He marked it down on a clipboard. She guided the rest of them to all ascend slowly.

"Why don't we want to ascend quickly again?" Jay asked.

"We don't want the surface to think we're too eager."

"Oh."

Marley and Brock made eye contact for a minute, motioning to the balloon in her hands. She gave it over to him and he untied the bottom, placing the balloon under Perry's butt.

Upon letting go of the balloon, Perry was raised upward at a dangerously fast pace of about ten feet per minute.

"This is gonna be so cool in like 8 more minutes." Kyle said excitedly.

They all watched the slow ascent and hoped Perry would explode soon.

Suddenly, a massive shadow appeared and as it got closer, they could see the megalodon coming back. Attracted to the bubbles, as most large extinct creatures are, the megalodon swam quickly by and opened its jaws wide enough to swallow the whole boat. Instead, it wasted all that space and went right for Perry at dizzying speed, and was gone in an instant.

"That was lucky."

"That was intentional." Marley held up her phone. "I have connections."

"Who did you call, Aquaman?"

"You believe in Aquaman!? No, I called Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Obviously Lava Girl was no help in the situation."

They heard the soft boom of Perry exploding inside the shark somewhere in the distance.

Brock caught the look on Jay's face. "Don't worry, there's more of them."

  1. Megalodon




	10. Falling Elevator

"This is, by far, the stupidest and dumbest thing I've ever seen." Brock said, looking at Kyle.

Kyle wasn't doing anything, Brock was just referring to him in general.

High above them, however, up on the purpleth floor (recall they aren't exactly numbered past nine), Marley was on a swinging platform dangling from the roof with a chainsaw, cutting a hole into the side of the hotel.

The reason for this is that Cameron had made some kind of stupid-ass comment a la Heidi Cruz (recall that Ted Cruz once asked why windows on airplanes don't open because his wife was getting too hot on the plane) about how she couldn't see out of the elevators when there was "probably a really pretty view outside" (recall that Cameron said this part, not Heidi Cruz).

Granted, having windows in elevators is not exactly unheard of, and certainly not as absurd as a presidential candidate wondering why airplane windows don't open, but the way Marley was attempting to construct it wasn't exactly conventional.

You see, Marley used to date a firefighter, before all this. Being particularly keen to death and destruction herself, Marley often tagged along on calls and drills with her firefighter girlfriend. She'd learned a lot about hoseline advancement, elevator rescue, and how close she could get her lawn chair to the fire before she got yelled at or caught on fire herself.

Now Marley was incorrectly utilizing the knowledge of how to open up an elevator shaft for an elevator rescue or ventilation with a chainsaw.

With Jay on the roof lowering tools down to her, she'd cut open a dog-door sized gap in the exterior of the hotel, not realizing that wires actually run through the walls that are not only essential to the hotel operation, but also had extremely deadly currents running through them.

And yes, she is a mechanic. In the _loosest_ sense of the word.

"This is perfect. Jay, get down here. I think we've got it." Marley called up.

Jay lowered himself down on a rope. "Looks good." He observed the jagged hole that looked like the Kool-Aid man had a rectangular baby and gently climbed through it making sure not to make too much of a mess but also still getting used to this incredible new world he'd been brought into and may have eagerly but not maliciously knocked a few extra holes in the wall trying to get through.

Nevermind, it was just a rectangle.

"What's that?" Jay pointed to something nestled in the wall.

Marley looked closer. "Aww, it's a widdle baby birds nest."

"Probably the mother's nest." Jay muttered, as if it were personal. "Babies don't pay rent."

Marley scooped up the baby bird in her hands and cooed at it softly.

"I don't think you're supposed to touch those."

"It's okay, I'm 2% avian."

Jay looked her over. "Where?"

"Burma, and parts of Kansas."

"Oh. Brock, come on up here and see this!" Jay called.

"No way man, that's dangerous!"

"Fine, send one of the guests."

"Okay!"

A few minutes later, a few hotel guests were scaling the walls up somewhere past floor 9. Marley had all the guests climb in through the window so they could climb into the elevator car one floor below and ride down because she thought that would be cute and fun.

However, it turns out the elevator car was above them, and the guests all fell to their deaths.

She still thought it was cute and fun.

Once they got the elevator car lowered to their level, Marley cut a hole in the side of that too, and she clutched the nest close to her as she climbed in, promising to relocate the nest.

Jay was about to climb in too, but he realized he had been lowered on a rope that he was supposed to be holding onto, and if nobody was holding the rope… well, he didn't finish that thought as he began to fall to his death.

Fortunately, he landed on Kyle.

~

Inside the elevator, Cameron had just boarded. "Ooh, hi birdie!" She greeted the small nest of birds.

"Hi, Cam." Marley smiled.

"Oh, Marley, I didn’t see you standing there!"

Marley was literally holding the birds. "It's fine. So uh, what brings you to these parts?" She tried to make casual conversation without looking like it was flirting, in case Claire was around to make fun of her. Also, trying to casually play off the fact that she had just killed like 10 guests.

"Just cleaning the rooms. Playing with the elevator." Last year, Marley had installed a swing set in the elevator, which Cameron very much enjoyed.

"Wait, you were moving the elevator?"

"Yeah, why? Is that bad?"

Marley thought about the guests who had just fallen to their deaths. "Nah. I just thought I put an "out of order" sign on it."

Cam laughed. "Turns out all you needed to fix it was to move the sign out of the way!"

"Haa… Clever."

"I could be a mechanic!"

Marley took this as an opportunity. "Well, we don't have mechanics here. Only queer engineers. So in order to be the engineer like I am, you have to be queer."

"Oh."

"So… are you--"

"Hey guys!" Brock burst in. "Um, I think Jay killed Kyle. He felt kinda bad so now he's doing CPR on him to try and bring him back."

"Does Jay know that Perry's the only one who can… respawn? That if one of us dies, we die for real?" Marley asked.

"Uh, no. I don't think he knows that."

Marley glanced out the elevator window (hole) and saw Jay doing chest compressions on Kyle. "Eh, I think he's getting 2-3 inches. Good enough."

Brock got in and pressed the button for the ground floor. "Man, I took the stairs all the way up here because I didn't think the elevator worked!"

"It doesn't." Marley said. They all listened to the soft elevator music for a moment while it brought them down to the 8th floor. "Well, it does. It's just not supposed to right now."

The elevator opened at the 8th floor and Perry got on. He greeted them politely.

"Perry, check this out." Marley pointed to the hole in the elevator wall. Which currently only showed the interior brick and cables of the elevator shaft, since Marley had only cut the exterior hole on the purpleth floor, and they were currently on the 8th.

"You cut a hole in my elevator." He stated. I mean, they kill him every night, Marley in particular has logged more kills than most, so he isn't too concerned about his elevator. Still, he's trying to run a business.

"It's a window, actually." Marley made her next move for three reasons:

1: She wanted to prove that she was right.

2: She a little bit wanted to impress her boss.

3: She really wanted to use the chainsaw again.

None of her immediate intentions involved killing Perry, but you know it's gonna get to that soon anyway.

She picked up the chainsaw and started to cut into the wall.

"Can I try!?" Cam asked.

Oh, and 4: Marley wanted to impress Cameron.

"Sure!"

Cam took the chainsaw and immediately missed the wall and cut right through a cable.

The elevator instantly began falling. This worked well, because Perry had been standing in the doorway, so when it dropped, he was cut in half the long way.

Which was pretty fuckin cool.

However, now Marley, Cam, and a few baby birds were plummeting to their deaths at the bottom of the elevator.

"Get flat!" Marley yelled, throwing herself flat on the floor and spreading her arms and legs wide. Cam got on top of her and did the same as the lights began to flicker and the car picked up speed.

If they died, at least Marley could take comfort in the fact that this was the first somewhat sexual contact between her and Cameron ever.

_CRUNCH!!!_

Both girls stood up, shaken but unharmed. The birds were fine. They're fucking birds, they were just in the air the whole time. Actually never mind, don't think too hard about the physics of that. I like to jump while in elevators. It unnerves people.

"We're alive!" Cam grinned, before she was attack-hugged by Marley.

Marley immediately remembered that using the term "attack hug" anywhere past 9th grade is severely frowned upon and punishable by death in several countries.

She didn't care, she'd actually almost died. "I'm so happy I could kiss you right now." She told Cam.

"Me too!" Cam agreed.

Marley paused. "Wait, really?"

The elevator doors opened. The basement floor was about waist-high. Claire was standing there. "Did this just drop?" She asked "I heard a loud crunch."

"Yes. We almost died. Well, Perry did die."

"How did you survive that?"

Marley was about to say "the power of love" but remembered about the ten or so corpses of the guests that probably softened their blow.

"Marley told me to get on top of her and we survived!" Cam said.

Claire pulled Cam out of the elevator and frowned at Marley. "You made her think she was gonna die just to get her on top of you!?"

"No! We really were falling!"

"Whatever." Claire ushered Cam away protectively, leaving Marley to sulk.

Fortunately, she had something to cheer herself up. She opened the ceiling hatch in the elevator and found what she was looking for: One half of Perry, sliced the long way.

It made her day. That and the baby birdies.

  * _Cut in half the long way by a falling elevator_




	11. Blood Fountain

It turns out Jay is surprisingly good at CPR.

Unfortunately, Kyle still had a broken neck.

Fortunately, Marley fashioned him a rather effective spinal brace to wear while he healed.

Unfortunately, instead of a "rod" she used a "pool noodle"

Fortunately, Kyle had scoliosis since he was a child and his spine was fucked up anyway.

So the day was already off to a great start.

Jay accepted a congratulations banquet and a trophy for saving Kyle's life after being the one to kill him in the first place. (I mean, I assume you get a banquet and trophy when you successfully resuscitate someone after doing CPR on them. I wouldn't really know. Everyone I've done CPR on stayed pretty dead. So Jay's already saved more lives than me and he didn't even go to EMT school.)

Irregardless (is a terrible word, because it means the same thing as regardless. Just like loosen and unloosen, or thaw and de-thaw.)

Anyway (is a much better word.)

As the head chef, Blue, brought out the main course, Brock stood and tapped loudly on his glass. "Speech! Speech! Speech!" He chanted, loudly declaring exactly what he was doing, which went over everyone's head since they all thought he wanted Jay to make a speech.

Jay went dutifully up to the podium and began, "Uh, I want to start off by saying I'm no hero. I guess you could say I was just doing my job since my job here was never technically defined. Saving Kyle's life is probably, literally the least helpful thing I could possibly do for humanity. What a ride these past few weeks have been with you guys, and I would like to take a moment to appreciate Kyle's life-- "

Kyle raised his glass, and Montenegro quickly took it away since Kyle isn't old enough to drink.

" --and completely ignore the fact that we literally murder Perry, sometimes multiple times a day. I don't know where all those bodies go." He joked.

Everyone chuckled politely. Perry raised his glass, and Marley dumped a box full of clearly-labelled rat poison in it, overflowing the glass with powder. Perry put it down.

"Seriously, where do the bodies go? People at the Bar Mitzvah ate him, and when he respawned, did he just disappear from their digestive tracts? Are there 900 dead Perrys somewhere in the basement?"

He received no answer. Marley booed.

"Kay then. Thank you all, and welcome to the 174th Hunger games! Shit wait, that's the wrong script. May the gods be ever in your flavor." Jay's script had been switched out from The Hunger Games Adaptation 3rd Draft to NFL: A Bad Lip Reading. Both of them were then rightfully put into the garbage because it's 2018.

"It's 2018!" Jay declared, then left to go change into his Crocs.

Everyone applauded, but only because Brock was yelling "Clap! Clap! Clap!", loudly declaring they type of STD he had, but that went over everyone's heads too.

In a moment of sibling-like love, Marley gave Kyle a sparkler and carried him out of the banquet hall on her shoulders. This predictably resulted not only in Marley's hair catching fire and Kyle slamming his forehead into the low-clearance doorframe, but also caused Blue to become spooked and drop a platter of peeled fruit, where Cameron slipped on a strawberry peel and hit the ground hard.

This caused Baxter to laugh so hard her choked on a piece of steak and, kinda wanting a 'I saved someone's life' banquet herself, Claire came up behind him to perform the Heimlich. The piece of steak was successfully dislodged from his throat but was then launched directly into Brock's mouth, who then predictably began choking also.

Remember, all this was completely predictable from the get-go.

Claire, figuring out how this Heimlich thing could work to her advantage, got behind Brock and positioned him like a foam-ball-popper thing. She aimed him right at Perry just as he was starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen. She squeezed hard, and the steak was of course launched into Perry's throat. However, Claire got a little too excited and squeezed Brock a little too hard, causing everything he'd eaten in the past 12 hours to go flying at Perry.

Don't worry, it's not too gross. He's just a harmless surfer dude, so all he'd eaten was (predictably) grass, seawater, tortoise eggs, small shards of aluminum, and now one soggy piece of steak.

It was the aluminum shards that really did it. And by did it, I mean they sliced Perry's neck open. Brock had built up a tolerance.

Thankfully, the blood spurting from Perry's neck put out the fire on Marley's head, and created a nice little dipping fountain for the peeled strawberries.

I hope that's not too graphic. I'm just telling you what they did.

  1. Blood Fountain




	12. Ghostbusted

"This is a level of coolness previously unseen by man or dogkind." Brock admired the new gear they had all gotten. Specifically, to hunt ghosts.

There had been a lot of reports recently of guests seeing ghosts move around corners, vanishing at the end of long hallways, and drifting through the floor yelling "MIAMI DOLPHINS SUCK" before disappearing into the ceiling.

As a Miami Dolphins fan himself, Brock took particular offense to this. Brock is from Oregon and has never been to Florida.

As a rival Buffalo Bills fan, Marley fully supported these ghosts. Marley is from Nebraska and has never been to New York. Some of the staff speculated whether she had created these ghosts herself somehow to fill out the Buffalo Bills' stadium.

When it came time to hunt ghosts however, she was totally down because she hadn't created them. The only way she can actually make ghosts is by killing people, which is an ongoing project she's still working on.

"This is a Protein Pack" Marley passed out backpacks with vacuum-like attachments to everyone who had bothered to show up for her Ghost Hunting Seminar in the conference room.

Kyle immediately pointed the barrel at his own face.

"Careful! These are very dangerous!" Marley tipped the wand away from his face. "What comes out of there could kill you."

"What does it shoot?" Kyle asked.

"I don't know."

"I thought you said you made these." Claire challenged.

"I did. I made these a while ago, not meant for ghost hunting, but they haven't served their intended purpose so far, so I'm bringing them out of retirement to see if somehow they'll work on ghosts."

"What were they for originally?"

"It was supposed to be a backpack that, when a lever is pressed, dispenses more backpacks. But something went wrong, and now it might be nuclear."

Claire thought this over more in two seconds than Marley had in her entire time spent making them. "So you tried to make backpacks come out of the wand, and instead a nuclear proton stream comes out?"

" _Protein_ stream."

"Fruits and veggies." Brock chimed in.

"So this protein stream is dangerous to ghosts?" Claire pressed.

"Yes."

"And humans?"

"Yes also. Don't cross the streams." Marley added.

"Bad urinal etiquette." Brock said, looking pointedly at Kyle.

"I already apologized!" Kyle said.

Marley ignored them. "I've divided us into teams. At 3am, when the ghosts are most active, Brock, Cameron and I will search the lower floors for paranormal activity. Claire, Jay, and Kyle will take the upper ceilings. Sound good?"

"Don't you mean upper floors?" Jay asked.

"You sound ridiculous."

"Thanks."

"Meet back here at 3am, everyone. Break!" She threw her hand up in the air.

"It's 3:04 am." Claire said.

"You're all late."

~//~

The search of the lower floors began with Marley asking Cameron how her day was and Brock sniffing every available candle in the hotel. He'd mostly inhaled dust since nobody fucking burns candles anymore.

"Where's Perry at today?" Brock asked.

"I was just thinking the SAME THING about Amelia Earhart." Marley said.

"I heard she now has a place in Prague." Cameron chimed in.

"Okay, you're _definitely_ thinking of someone else."

Suddenly, an ownerless shadow drifted along the walls and disappeared around the corner.

The trio geared up and aimed their wands and flashlights at the end of the hall. "Show yourself, shadow!"

"I focking can't when ya got all your damn lights on!" The shadow replied, with a rude British accent.

Everyone flicked off their lights. "You've got quite a mouth!" Cameron told it.

"Feck off, ya bitch!"

"What'd you call her!?" Marley shouted.

"A bitch."

"Get outta here, you coward!"

"Why don't you get out!?"

They pondered that for a moment. "Oh. I guess we could--" Brock started.

"Yeah we didn't really think of that." Cameron said.

"We'll leave if you stop bothering our guests!" Marley said.

"Ain't me. I'm no ghost I'm a focking shadow! Can't ya tell or ye fucking blind, bitch?"

"Why aren't you attached to a person then?"

"I belonged to Peter Pan, but we sorta disconnected when he quit the uppers, ya know?"

"Oohhh yeah, that'll do it." Brock said way too knowingly.

~//~

Upstairs, the other gang was having less luck.

"This is so boring! Why is this taking forever!?" Claire complained, but she was playing the Sims and waiting for her sim to eat cereal.

"Be quiet, you're probably scaring the ghosts." Jay said, clutching his protein wand tightly.

"It's usually the other way around, but I guess if anyone could scare ghosts it'd be Claire." Kyle said.

"Are you shit-talking me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

A small noise came from behind one of the doors right next to them.

"What the fuck was that?" Jay jumped.

"Open it" Claire said.

"You open it!"

Kyle opened it. A stack of turtles, all the way up, had been leaning against the other side of the door. Now they all came tumbling down into the hallway.

The trio opted to ignore that absurd development and continued ghost hunting, leaving the turtles spilled all over the floor to gather themselves (none of them were injured, though).

After searching the next three floors with no luck, Jay wearily leaned his protein pack on a statue, trying to take the weight off his shoulders. "Looks like we're stuck together for the night, so, you want a drink?" He offered.

"Shut up, Bill Cosby." Claire said, but she was talking to her sim again, whom she'd named Bill Cosby because she's just not right in the head.

Jay stood up and realized his backpack had left a dent in the statue, giving their mini mothman even more of a buttcrack.

Suddenly, a ghostly voice drifted through the halls…

"Miami Dolphinsssss…"

"WHAT was that?" Claire jumped, actually scared now.

"Suck ballssss…"

Jay geared up. "I think it's the ghost we've been looking for."

"What do we do?" Kyle asked.

"I'm not sure, but whatever the plan is, you're the live bait."

"And what if the plan doesn't involve live bait?"

"I'll find some other method of putting you in harm's way." Jay grew a little more bold, wanting to catch the ghost but of course not knowing that there was no chance in hell Marley's backpack invention could possibly trap a ghost. If they were lucky, it might do what it's supposed to and dispense backpacks. If they're not lucky, there could soon be an 87-mile radius nuclear crater where the hotel currently is.

"H-hey ghost! Show yourself!" Kyle tossed out with the confidence of a wingless baby bird falling from the nest and accepting its impending death.

"WHY ARE YOU PROVOKING IT" Claire hid behind Jay, and she wasn't talking to her sims anymore.

"Are you actually scared?" Jay asked. "That's not how you provoke this kind of phantom, anyway. We want him to feel like we're friends to lure him out. Try this:"

Jay cleared his throat, and Kyle took notes.

"Hey man, I'm Thurman Thomas."

"Is that racist?" Claire asked. "You're very ethnically ambiguous."

"I'm equal parts Pakistani, Native American, and Irish." Jay said. "I have three biological parents."

"Lucky, I only have one." Kyle said.

"What ethnicity is your parent, Kyle?"

"Nintendo." I'm telling you, he looks like a human Nintendog. One of the yellow labs whose characteristics description is so boring you refresh the kennel.

Hit me up on StreetPass, I frequent the Allentown bars in downtown Buffalo or any sketchy abandoned buildings in Queens.

I'm kidding, don't go into sketchy buildings. If Jay had taken that advice he wouldn't be here right now.

Jay changed his tactic. "Hey man, I know Jim Kelly…'s nephew. I can get you an autograph."

The ghost finally floated up through the floors (whereas most living people just fall through them). "Miami Dolphins suck eggs." it said, quieter than before.

"Okay dude, but can you stop yelling that at our guests? I promise you Brock's the only Dolphins fan here. Yell at him all you want."

"Brock?" The ghost asked.

"Actually… Perry. You should yell at Perry, he's a huge Dolphins fan."

"Dolphins suck!!"

"Yeah, I know buddy. Go find Perry."

Jay didn't actually mean right now, but the ghost flew through the walls and floors until he'd grabbed Perry, who was mid-shower, and brought him back to them.

Fortunately, Wilson Perry is a professional gentleman, and therefore showers with all his clothes on. Now you might be thinking, okay, that sounds like a thing someone might do, so I won't burst your bubble by explaining how he shits with his pants on too.

With the ghost effectively distracted, yelling horrible obscenities about the Miami Dolphins directly into Perry's face, Jay and Kyle geared up.

Claire was still terrified of the ghost, and was curled up in a chandelier which is actually statistically the WORST place to be when a haunting is afoot, and that's according to science.

"What if our streams cross?" Kyle asked nervously.

"Good point. You aim for the ghost, I'll aim for Perry." Jay said.

Kyle gave a nod, painted some eyeblack war paint on his cheeks, and fired his protein stream.

Now, this very well could have been the end of the Sea Chantey and several surrounding countries, and therefore the end of this story. Blindly trusting Marley's shit is as much of a no-no as pouring gasoline on yourself and jumping into a tornado. However, this time, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The following events happened:

Kyle and Jay both pulled their triggers.

A stream of slightly radioactive backpacks flew out from their protein wands.

The backpacks went right through the ghost because neither backpacks nor proteins have any effect on phantom beings.

Backpacks seem somewhat harmless, however I didn't mention that they flew from the wands at a speed of 1026 miles per hour.

That killed Perry.

And the radiation. But mostly the backpacks.

~//~

Come morning, their ghost problem had not even sort of been solved, but Bill Cosby (the Sim) had finished his bowl of cereal. Which Claire had somehow managed to lace with cyanide even though it's a video game. But that's REALLY irrelevant here.

The turtles had stacked themselves back up behind the closet door in a different order than before because it's not symbolic of a totalitarian dictatorship, but rather an autonomous collective of socialist turtles for equal-opportunity stacking, babey. 

The shadow Marley, Brock, and Cameron had been dealing with had attached itself to the Miami-hating ghost and was teaching it new profanities it had never heard before, and the ghost was teaching the shadow how to channel its hatred and aim it at one particular NFL team. The resulting poetry was glorious.

And now, Monaco (the hotel manager, in case you forgot) approached Jay at the breakfast buffet and presented him with a plaque.

"You're an official Sea Chantey employee, Jay. You've met all the criteria. Congratulations. There is no pay raise."

Jay gladly accepted it and, curious, read the list of qualifications:

  1. Kill Perry at least once (fulfilled in Chapter 8 - Meat Grinder)
  2. Assist on at least two kills (Jay was guilty by association of at least 11 premeditated murders by now)
  3. Get injured by Marley's invention (Chapter 11 Falling Elevator)
  4. Insult Kyle (Best accomplished this chapter with the line "I'll find some other method of putting you in harm's way"



And last but not least,

  1. Have no family that cares about you.



All that was engraved on the plaque, (including the parentheticals) along with an engraving of Jay's face, done by artist Cecilia Gimenez.

By the way, whoever is reading this can feel free to throw me a banquet now. I successfully resuscitated a patient doing CPR and although he died the next day, I have not yet received the banquet I assumed one gets for such an accomplishment. My preferred party theme is The War of 1812. Thanks in advance.

  * _Ghostbusted_




	13. Mousetrap 13 (A Sea Chantey Christmas)

A Sea Chantey Christmas

Before you are misled about the title, everyone is this story is probably Jewish (except for Jay, as previously established). I can't tell you why, and some of them celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. It's absurd, but to some degree, everyone is probably jewish, I can't control this. Just like they're all probably gay to some degree too.

So when Jay brought an evergreen tree into the lobby, they called him a "foreigner" and told him his religion was destructive.

However, it was never established that Jay is any religion besides "not jewish". So with that development, I announce that he is of the religion that celebrates "Opposite Day". This means for one day a year, Jay's life is so annoyingly paradoxical that he's just in pain the whole day and can't function. Or can he.

See? It sucks. He'd love to convert.

He did point out though, that he's not really a foreigner since he is one-third Native American. So out of guilt and with several apologies, he was allowed to keep his evergreen tree in the lobby.

"Now, I don't know much," Kyle started, even though for him, that's usually just the whole sentence. He says it at least twice a day. But this time, he had more to say. "but I don't think you're supposed to take the roots with the tree when you cut it down."

Jay looked at the base of his tree. "I think you are. So you can replant it when you're done."

"You can't put it back." Marley cut in. "I've tried with heads before. Doesn't work."

"Trees are definitely different." Kyle said.

Claire cut in, with great concern. "Hold on, Marley, you--"

"Did you know that most modern buildings don't have a 13th floor?" Marley asked.

Jay glided smoothly past the decapitation thing. "Why yes, I did know that."

"This hotel has a 13th floor." Kyle pointed out.

"True, but it's on the 8th floor."

"Why do you bring it up?" Brock asked, having missed the part where she brought it up to cover up the decapitation thing.

"Well thank you for asking, today will mark the 13th time we've murdered our boss since Jay arrived. With that, Jay, I challenge you to separate Perry into 13 pieces. At least one of those must involve putting his head a fatal distance from his body." And we're right back to the decapitation thing. It's okay.

Jay rubbed his non-Jewish hands together, already formulating a plan.

~//~

"Attention!" Jay shouted through the megaphone. He had gathered everyone on the grass behind the hotel, with the beach behind them. "I've gathered you all on the grass behind the hotel today for a special event, several hours in the making."

Marley watched on from the side like a proud mother. Once you read the rest of this you can guess how much she had to do with it.

"This is what I call, the Mousetrap Thirteen. Based on a board game I played once as a child. I only got to play it once because my Dad said it was too much of a pain in the ass to set up. And that's how I learned the word ass. Well, today, I've created a much larger version, set up all by myself! Fuck you, Dad!"

Marley grabbed the mic real quick. "I helped make this! My dad is my inspiration! Love you, dad!" Her father was killed by lightning while standing in a puddle, remember?

"Without further ado, let me tell you about my 13-part murder trap. I mean mousetrap." Jay pointed at the first item, which was a lifeguard's tower. Perry sat at the top.

"First, our mouse will go down the Slide of Terror, covered in razor-sharp spikes. Second, he falls into the Inflatable Pool of Terror, which is filled with ocean water that I sneezed in!"

Brock winced.

"Third, the pool pops and Perry, I mean the mouse, is flooded down into the Field of Terror, which is perpetually on fire!"

"I voted to call it the "Field of Ouch." Marley added.

"Why not the Field of Fire!?" Claire pointed out.

"ShhHHH!" Marley hissed.

"Fourth, the mouse crawls into the spinning, cinderblock-filled Tunnel of Terror!"

"See, that name makes sense." Claire said.

"Fifth, sixth, and seventh are all more pools." Jay pointed to several more pools filled with various sizzling liquids.

"Of terror!" Brock cupped his hands and shouted.

"Eighth, The Climb of Terror! Where the mouse will climb this rock wall while we throw backpacks at him. Ninth, the Bellyflop of Terror, where he bellyflops into a small pool at the bottom and tries to set a world record." Jay pointed to the bottom of the rock wall, where there was no pool and there never was intended to be.

"Tenth, a Backflip Into Lava… of Terror!" Jay pointed to a dunk tank they had filled with lava. "A backpack will set off the trigger."

"It's beautiful." Baxter commented.

"Eleventh, I beat him with this baseball bat." Jay held up a bat. He could've at least put spikes on the bat, but he didn't.

"Twelfth, I beat him with the bat!" Marley raised her fists in victory.

"Yep. And thirteenth… we slide him into this metal chamber made from old elevator parts, then his own weight causes the doors to close and push him further forward, at which point his only option is to push back against the burning hot metal doors, or wait to be pressed through this custom cookie cutter mold, designed to slice… the uh, mouse, into 13 equal pieces."

"What's that one called?" Brock yelled.

"The Mouse Cutter of Terror!" Jay could really stop saying mouse now. The mold was in the exact specific shape of a human. It had fingernails.

"LET'S GO!" Jay fired the starting gun.

Perry nudged himself forward and slid down the spiked Slide of Terror. "Wheee." A slide was a kind of fun way to start your death. Next, he slid into the sneezed-in pool, which went well.

Brock gagged and nearly threw up watching Perry swim through the water.

Jay popped the inflatable pool, and Perry slid into the Field of Ouch.

This is where things didn't go according to plan. Due to some very poor (AND OBVIOUS) design flaws, the water from the Pool of Terror immediately put out the flames of the Field of Ouch. Perry slipped through the mud , right past the Tunnel of Terror and knocked over the other three Pools of Terror, spilling dangerous liquids across the grass and down the beach.

Marley jumped to avoid some type of bubbling acid, and climbed up the dunk tank wall instead.

Remember, only Perry respawns. Anyone else who dies, dies for real. As dying usually goes. I don't really need to explain that part to you.

The lava melted the plastic and Marley was forced to leap onto the rock wall, seeing as the floor was literally lava at that point.

Perry continued to slide through the mud while Jay, from a safe vantage point atop the bat, instinctively threw backpacks at Marley on the wall.

"Stop! Please!" She begged, losing her grip on the unreasonably small climbing mounts. This one was shaped like a starfish, but Marley has large hands.

"I can't help it! I'm pre-programmed!" Jay could've stopped.

Marley fell from the wall, toward the lava below. She managed to land on a backpack (since backpacks count when playing the floor is lava), but also slipped on that backpack (since lava is slippery) and landed just past the lava's edge (which would be a great movie title).

She grabbed the bat out from under Jay to steady herself, and Jay landed on his back, from which vantage point he could see a real mouse scurrying across the field. This terrified him, so he jumped up and onto Brock's shoulders, who stumbled onto a ladder they had been using to set up the mousetrap. A conveniently placed triangular fulcrum (since we all learned about fulcrums in science class and were for some reason only shown diagrams of perfect triangles) caused the ladder to act as a see-saw.

Perry had slid through the mud, passing over the other end of the ladder at the exact right time to be flung up, into the Mouse Cutter of Terror metal box elevator trap torture device murder weapon thing.

"I can't believe that worked either." Were Perry's last words.

The mixture of lava, fire, acid, sneeze water, mud, and blood made for some beautiful DIY decorations for a secular multicultural Holiday Season.

They enjoyed the sight of their day's work being destroyed by fire, lava, backpacks, and physics, as well as the sight of their boss being sliced into…

FOURTEEN PIECES???? !

"We measured wrong." Jay lamented.

"He crouched." Marley defended. "I'll get the super glue."

_13: Human Mousetrap_


	14. Supply Run

While most hotels receive supply shipments on a regular basis, with things such as soap and shampoo, refills for vending machines, food, and coffee creamers, the Sea Chantey does not. Baxter thinks having things brought to them makes the Sea Chantey look too needy, and makes the delivery companies seem too eager.

Fortunately, Baxter doesn't really have a say in anything, that's more Monaco and Perry's job. But on this one thing, they did have to agree. Having stuff delivered makes the delivery companies seem too eager.

They do have Amazon Prime, but only for the TV shows.

So every once in a while (when guests complain or starve, or complain that they're starving to death), They send a boat out to a nearby island where supermarkets grow in the wild.

It doesn't need to be said that Marley drives the boat. Theoretically, she's a top. We'll see.

"Final requests!" Marley held out the shopping list. She gestured to Perry. "Last meal?"

"I had a big lunch."

"Great. Anyone else wanna waste my time?" Marley asked.

"I would like to." Claire said. Then just stared at her. "Okay, I'm done."

"Thank you. Anyone else?"

"Rollerskates." Brock said.

"I get you rollerskates every time. What are you doing with all of them?"

"Taping them to a giant hamster ball."

She glanced at Perry. "Is it for a kill?"

"Uh… sure."

"Fine." Marley marked it on her list. "Last call?"

"We're running low on toilet paper." Jay reported.

Everyone stared at him. "What kind of bullshit--"

Marley decided not to pick on him. "Use your hand. Anyone have any real concerns to address?"

"Racism."

Marley closed her notebook. "We'll work on that tomorrow."

~//~

Out on the open water, the warm tropical breeze smacked the sails around gently, while the motor worked hard to propel the large ship.

Marley's flag waved proudly: An alien head on crossbones, with the words "I want to believe" printed under it in four different fonts: Comic Sans, Veranda, Papyrus, and Baskerville.

She had also drawn alien eyes on the sails long ago, which looked cool from a distance, but Brock and Kyle thought they were targets for lawn-dart practice (and still do think that).

That's why the boat has a motor.

They should have just painted the sails as butterfly wings, like every other normal goddamned ship on the ocean, but Perry didn't believe in marginalizing butterfly culture like that.

Kyle looked down from the crow's nest. "Hoe Land!" He shouted, pointing.

"Land-ho" Marley corrected.

Brock also peered in the distance. "Mermaids." He said. "Kyle thinks they're hoes."

Marley snatched up some binoculars. "Mermaids?"

Sure enough, several mermaids parted from the island to swim near their boat, and most of them weren't hoes. They were all wearing seashell bras and no pants over their tails, but the way someone dresses does not make them a hoe. Some of them were acting like real hoes.

Marley took off towards the lower deck, but quickly remembered she had been steering the boat and that's kind of important too. "Jay!" She ran back.

"Who?" Jay asked.

"Can you steer the ship for a few minutes? I need a lunch break."

Jay eyed the humongous wood-spiked steering wheel at the front of the ship. "Yeah, whatever." Jay agreed, fully knowing that the steering wheel does absolutely nothing on ships like this. He walked over and pretended to hold on.

Marley, Brock, and Claire rushed to the lower deck to greet their new friends. Beautiful sea creatures swam into the boat's lifeboat launch cavern. There were mermaids, mermen, and mernbs (mer-non-binaries, which happens to be Brock's sexual preference).

"Hey there, stuff." Marley said to a mermaid, meaning to say 'hot stuff'.

The mermaid swam over to her. "What brings you land-walkers out this way?" She asked conversationally, obviously picking up the pheromones Marley was dropping everywhere like a flower girl with petals.

"Absurdity." Marley said.

Claire took particular interest in a merman, and Brock began chatting up the mernbs.

"Sweet ride." The mermaid cooed, her voice like silk, twirling Marley's hair around her finger. "What's your name?"

"Marley."

"Like the dog?"

"Like the Bob. What's yours?"

"Doug." The mermaid said.

"You're a beautiful woman, Doug." Marley's flirting is always hit or miss.

"And you look like something happened."

"Thanks." Marley was breathless. "Are we dating now?"

"Sure."

"Can I kiss you?"

Doug made the first move, leaning in. Out of the corner of her eye, Marley caught Claire's eye, and worried if she was going to make fun of her later about this. Or tell Cameron.

SQUAAAAAAAAAA

Just then, the boat made a very concerning noise as it ran ashore. Really, what the fuck is that noise about?

The merpeople were knocked back into the water and swam away, startled. Marley was knocked back by the impact, and caught herself on her hands, watching the mermaid retreat her embrace.

The other three regained their senses. "Jay!" Marley shouted, running back to the upper deck.

Claire and Brock followed, also pissed. Well, Brock doesn't really get pissed. But Claire really does.

Jay stood at the bow, looking down at the beach below. "Is this the island?"

"Why aren’t you at the steering wheel!?"

"That's a real steering wheel!?" Jay is starting to fit right in with the rest of these dingbats.

Kyle jumped down to inspect the damage to the boat. "Still got plenty of room." He reported, even though the boat had fully crashed into a rock.

~//~

The store they got most of their supplies from is BlowJob's. It's like BJ's, but less subtle. It was also where Marley got supplies to fix the boat, and since she's the hotel's mechanic / maintenance worker, she should know how to fix the boat. And she does. She prays to the lord of sliced snakes, and hopes they float.

Just kidding she has no idea.

Inside BlowJob's, Brock quickly located his roller skates, and actually put them on this time. "Look!" Everyone else barely heard him as he whizzed past the aisle.

Claire ignored him. "So I'm thinking this could be good for a kill," She held up a puppy.

"Lookatme!" Brock whizzed by again. Kyle was the only one who cared enough to raise his head, but he only caught the tail end of Brock.

"What's its name?" Marley asked.

"It's a dog, you make up a name."

"I'VE GOT A BIBLE!" Brock screamed, for whatever reason thinking that would get their attention. It didn't.

"Do I get to pick the name?" Marley asked.

"Have you never had a dog explained to you before?" Claire asked.

"Well if we get it, and you name it, you'll name it something like "Marley's stupid" or "Spot".

The dog started licking Claire, and she couldn't say no now.

"You know, they only lick you because they know there are bones underneath." Marley stated.

Claire wouldn't really process that until later as she fell asleep. "Fine, you can pick the name."

"I'll have to think about it."

Claire took it as a win and put the dog in the cart.

Brock twirled up to them, "Hey guys, did you see me?"

"Yes." Everyone mumbled.

"I missed it, could you do it again?" Perry asked.

"Yeahyeah, suresure." Brock took off again.

Jay put his hands in his pockets and waited. He could see a pattern now, and he was pretty sure a death was coming soon. He looked around, wondering what would be the mechanism of death this time. There were tall shelves that could fall, a wall of electronic TVs, and very slowly spinning fans way the hell up on the ceiling for some reason.

None of them screamed DEATH, though.

So Jay really didn't see this coming.

An employee walked by holding a tray of small brownie samples. The box said "Death By Vanilla". He was only able to scream "DEATH--" though, before the unfortunate man stepped right in Brock's path just as Brock flew by, clocking in at 94 mph. The sample tray (and employee) were thrown high into the air, missing the ominous fan blades, and into a gathering of lost balloons high in the rafters.

The employee grabbed a rafter and held on for dear life, while the samples fell to the ground, along with the cup full of toothpicks. So you might've guessed that the toothpicks turned out to be small British drone spies, and we, as a nation never specified other than "North America", are lucky they were destroyed in the fan blades. We don't need them having our secrets, whoever "we" are.

And then the dog bit Perry in the throat. For the bones underneath.

Marley and Claire sawed up Perry's bones and used them to patch parts of the ship, and gave a bone to the good unnamed dog.

After much hemming and hawing, Marley finally decided on a name. She was inspired by an employee who caught her feeding Perry's bones to the dog, and said "That's bloody sick!"

So the dog is named Sick.

  1. Pup attack




	15. 25 Ways to Die By Vending Machine

So this is kinda cool: by no force or particular outside influence, Jay and Claire were both up at the same time that night, and both decided to walk around.

Granted, the "force" might be the blaring smoke alarms that nobody else got up for, but Jay and Claire didn't evacuate the building either, so they're not much better off.

The cause of the smoke detector activation will be revealed at the end of this chapter, but it has nothing to do with the chapter storyline. Please trust that I would not withhold that kind of information from you.

Since Jay was already up, he figured he'd stop by the vending machine to get a head start on breakfast. He rested one palm on the glass and tried to make his decision, but kept getting distracted by his own reflection in the glass. He heard a slithering nearby and turned to see Claire.

"Want something?" He offered, not intending to pay for it. 

Claire also took in the contents of the vending machine, unable to turn down food paid for by someone else (which is better than free food).

They stood there for a moment, and Jay wondered if she heard his question. He opened his mouth to ask again, but was interrupted.

"You know what would be cool?" She asked, still looking at the glass.

"Setting a waterslide on fire and then sliding down it with a firehose?"

"N--" That hadn't been what Claire was going to say of course, but it did sound cool. "Wow, yes. But I was thinking of rigging the vending machine to kill Perry tomorrow."

Jay looked back at the machine and saw rows of packaged snacks, not a mechanism of death, but he'd never been terribly creative. "Um, yeah uh, me-- I was thinking that too."

"But there's so many good ways." Claire pondered, with a sadistic twinkle in her eye. "Let's make a list." She pulled out a sharpie, held out her hand, and said "Handy dandy notebook!"

Nothing happened.

She shook her open hand in the air. "Handy dandy notebook!"

Jay was confused. "Do you think a notebook is going to appear?" He'd seen some weird things at the Sea Chantey, but _that_ seemed cliché.

"No, Cameron is supposed to bring me a notebook. Notebooks don't just _appear._ Cliché's are outlawed here."

Jay just nodded, realizing he was never going to fully understand the Sea Chantey. "Cameron's not here."

"We'll use the wall." Claire popped the cap off the sharpie and wrote:

**1,**

"What's a common way to kill someone with a vending machine?" She asked.

"Uh, the lights are out and you walk into it? Like, really hard?" He'd hoped she would come up with most of the ideas.

"Good." Claire began writing.

**1, Fatal crush fractures to the face.**

"That's… sort of what I said." Jay mumbled.

"Now let me think of one…" She tapped her chin with the sharpie, but the wrong end, leaving black dots all over. "Got it."

**2, Reaching under Flap to Steal Snack when a Power Surge hits and the Machine Reverses Itself so your Hand gets Pulled In by the Metal Spires and Twists, Sucking you Into the Machine.**

Jay scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah that's, um, I think I've h-heard of that happening." He hadn't.

"Right?" Claire stood back to admire her work. "Your turn."

"Um…" Jay forced himself to dig deep into his Creative Cavity. It was gross. He tried to follow Claire's pattern of random things happening. "Maybe you're rollerskating too fast, and you can't hit the brakes, and you slam into the machine and the glass breaks on your neck?"

Claire looked annoyed. "That's _basically_ what I just said."

It was _nothing_ like she just said.

Okay, harnessing Claire's creativity didn't work. Jay tried to think harder… Marley would definitely have some creative answers. He tried to harness her power.

"Got it!" Jay snatched the marker from Claire and wrote:

**3, Nuclear Reactor Meltdown**

Claire snatched the marker back. "That's got nothing to do with vending machines! We can't erase it, dammit. Ask me first!"

"Fine, bossy." Jay grumbled.

Under it, Claire wrote:

**4, Nuclear Accident at Snack Factory, Radioactive Snacks get sent to Vending Machine, People Walk past it Every Day and Slowly Die of Radiation Sickness, Never Knowing The Cause.**

"That reads like a bad headline." Jay commented. "And it's basically what I just said."

"Fine. Do better." She passed him the marker, and they found a steady rhythm back and forth (of defacing the wall, not anything sexual).

**5, Human Sandwiched Between 2 Vending Machines**

**6, Someone Gets their Arm Caught in the Flap and Ironically Starves to Death**

**7, Machine dispenses Boiling Acid**

**8, Dick Stuck in the Coin Slot**

**9, Someone Buys the Danish in the Bottom Row that's Been There for 5 Years and Eats It**

**10, Hair Pulled into the Bill Slot, Accidentally Chop Neck while Trying to cut Hair Off**

**11, Tripped By Cat, Facefirst into Broken Glass**

**12, Alligators in the Pit when you Reach your Hand in Like a Moat**

**13, Strangled by the Cord**

"Stop, stop." Jay said.

"What?" Claire was on a roll.

"These are all accidental ways to die from a vending machine."

"Yeah? So?"

"So we kill Perry on _purpose_."

"Yeah? So?"

Jay lost his train of thought.

"Let's write ways we can kill Perry on purpose!" Claire said.

"Wow, good idea." Jay thought that idea sounded familiar. Due to venting problems (Marley stores her personal belongings in the vents), the Sea Chantey doesn't have enough oxygen getting through, and it makes people act stupid. And they're pretty unintelligent.

**13, Chop Perry up and Sell his Body Parts in the Vending Machine**

**14, Put Vending Machine on a Zip Line and Fly it Through Perry's Bedroom Window**

**15, Fill the machine with Angry Bats that Fly Out and Consume Whomever Approaches (preferably Perry or Kyle)**

**16, Put the Vending Machine on Skateboards and Roll it down a Steep Road while Trying To Outrun it, Like the Bulls in Spain**

**17, Drop Machine onto a Trampoline from Top Floor of Sea Chantey, with Perry laying Under the Trampoline**

**18, Release a Kraken**

**19, Shake up All the Sodas in the Machine and Let Them Explode**

**20, Vending Machine in place of the Driftwood Door at the End of** **_Titanic_ ** **So Rose Dies Too**

**21, Take Machine on a Rollercoaster and Don't Strap it In**

**22, Divide Vending Machine by Zero**

**23, Use a Vending Machine invented by Willy Wonka that Cuts off Little Pieces of You at Night and Wraps them In Chocolate Which you then Eat, so you're Eating Yourself Little by Little Every Day Until you notice the Open Sores but by then You're Addicted and it's Too Late**

**24, Make Fun of the Machine's Outfit**

Jay and Claire stepped back to admire their work.

"24 Seems like a reasonably obnoxious number to stop at." Jay commented, but it was like a compliment. They also ran out of wall to write on.

"Which one of these should we do to Perry tomorrow?" Claire asked.

"I like 14." Jay said.

"The zipline? Seems pretty do-able." Claire put her hands on her hips and nodded, gears turning.

Jay actually just liked the number 14 in general. Easily divisible. Not too hard to count to. And a nice age where you start to know things but aren't _expected_ to know them--

"I'm gonna mull over this a little more in bed." Claire said, waving Jay a goodnight. "See you tomorrow!"

Jay returned to his room also, feeling really good that he spent time with Claire and she _didn't_ try to strangle him, or even get mad. Maybe he could try and work things out between her and Marley…

They both fell asleep, not even sort of worrying about a machine coming to cut parts off of them while they slept to make chocolate bars. But now I'm worried. And you are too.

…

Around 6:10 that morning, Perry awoke as usual and dropped his feet into his slippers, pushing open the curtains to let in the shadowy blue morning light, and wipe dew from the windowsill because the Sea Chantey does NOT have properly installed windows.

He made his way down the hall, enjoying the silence. He walked right past the list Claire and Jay had made, which took up an entire wall in sharpie, and paused at the vending machine, deciding to treat himself today. He dug some change out of his pocket and slipped the coins in, punching A7 into the pad.

The metal spoke twisted, and the bag of cookies started to tip, but stopped just short of falling.

Perry shook and tipped the machine in frustration, and,

**_predictably,_ **

It landed on top of him and crushed him to death, alone in the hallway.

Now here's a fun little factoid, the cause of the smoke from earlier? _Spontaneous human combustion._ Isn't that fun?

  * _25 Ways to Die by Vending Machine_




	16. Safety Training / Impaled by Swinging Chandelier

"Heyyyyyy, guyssssss…." Marley started off, addressing the banquet hall in a tone that said she didn't want to be here. "So due to some recent incidents that were witnessed and reported by a guest, the Department of Stealth-- "

"Health." A frowny, professional sounding man corrected. He was also wearing a traffic cone on his head.

"Deodorant of Health…" Marley corrected, sounding annoyed. "sent a representative to celebrate us."

" _Educate_ you." He took over the mic, pushing her off the stand in a definitely not-healthy way.

Marley shuffled back to her seat between Cameron and the wall.

Brock leaned forward to tap her shoulder. "I like your shoulder"

The man leaned too close into the mic. Thankfully it wasn't a real mic. "Listen up, you bowligans. This funny to you? An innocent guest found the most horrific thing in his room, scarring him for years to come, and you think you can just laugh away this first aid training? Can you imagine getting back from a long business trip, walking into your hotel room and finding a drop of blood on the corner of the sink??" He spat.

Claire let out one loud yelp of a laugh, before containing herself.

Thankfully, Monaco quickly tried to cover up everyone's dismissal of the matter. "One drop is definitely too much."

Traffichead wasn't finished. "--next to a trail of blood which led to the bathtub, in which sat the _dead body_ of his mother, her foot caught in a bear trap??"

"Why was his mother on his business trip?" Jay blurted.

"That trap was meant for a mouse…" Marley muttered, only focused on one thing: this means the mouse is still loose.

"I feel like you're just making up the mother part for effect." Jay continued.

Traffichead started to steam with anger. He slowly raised his fist, veins popping from his arm, trying to fight it back down. He grabbed another traffic cone and put it over his right arm. "YOU SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!??"

"… No." Jay said. "I mean yes but like, _why._ "

Traffichead took a deep breath. "The angrier I get, the more cones I need to control my limbs. Don't make me any angrier, or I WILL GO FULL STARFISH. Now let's get started on the first aid!" He kicked a CPR dummy out onto the floor. "He's dead! What do you do?"

"Apologize." Marley said without hesitation.

"No, you check for a pulse!"

"You said he's dead." Brock pointed out.

Obviously not the right answer. "And what if I was a _cop_ telling you he's dead?" 

Cameron leaped forward to the dummy. "Hello, sir."

"Correct!" Traffichead said.

"Seriously?" Claire asked.

"Never let a cop make a medical diagnosis!" For real, don't. That specific advice brought to you by an EMT (me, authorface) who found a patient _breathing_ after being declared dead by a cop. "Now what do you do if he's not breathing?"

"Give him breaths." Marley said.

"GIVE HIM BREATHS!"

"Why are you so angry all the time?" Jay asked.

"Because I have the slightest bit of knowledge about emergency medicine and I WATCH CHICAGO FIRE!"

"That'll do it." Marley nodded. Even she could recognize how poorly-researched that show is.

"Yo, have you seen New Amsterdam?" Brock asked. 

Traffichead roughly jammed another traffic cone over his left arm. He took a deep breath. At least Brock didn't say Station 19. "Now. You've checked their pulse, you've said hello. Still nothing. You've started compressions and breaths at a rate of 30:2. Your dad is there, and he disapproves. That doesn't mean anything. What are you forgetting!?"

"Thoughts and prayers." Brock said.

"A defibrillator." Jay said quietly.

"You're giving it your all! You're forcefully pushing life back into this dummy! What's the _ONE THING_ you're missing?" As if saying it louder will make them get it.

"A defibrillator." Jay said, louder this time (not getting it).

"A metronome!" Brock shouted.

Traffichead started grunting and repeatedly slamming a fourth traffic cone on the ground as he fit it over his leg. "Agh! Agh! Stupid! No!"

"A duffel bag full of unmarked bills." Marley pitched in.

"A present!" Cameron smiled.

It's just getting worse, isn't it?

With his one good leg, Traffichead dragged himself over to his training gear and pulled out a t-shirt gun. With his pointed cone hands, he aimed it high into the room and fired.

"You need Powerade!" He screamed, putting the last cone over his leg. "This is a commercial for Powerade!"

Full disclosure: it's not. This man has nothing to do with Powerade and really works for the Deodorant of Stealth -- sorry, Department of Health -- and this is actually quite a normal outburst for him.

But bottled powerade did come out of the cannon. And that's pretty dangerous.

Everyone screamed and ducked as bottles of colorful energy drink exploded around the room.

Don't worry -- the chapter's almost over, I promise.

One of the Powerade bottles struck and sheared the wire that was suspending the chandelier. The massive chandelier lost altitude quickly and swung low across the room, its pointiest parts aimed directly at Perry.

Claire flung herself across the room to catch the chandelier line before it could hit the ground, so it continued to swing right at abdomen-height.

Traffichead fell over onto his back and couldn't get up. Probably because of the cones.

"He's gone full starfish!" Jay shouted.

The mouse Marley failed to catch scurried across the room and under Perry's feet.

Perry tripped over the mouse just in time to miss the giant swinging spiked death chandelier.

Marley would not accept that her plans had been foiled by the mouse and, determined to foil the mouse's plans as well, she gave Perry a quick shove back into the chandelier's path, so he was impaled by it as it swung back again.

Traffichead looked up just in time to see Perry's impaled body swing right over his head, several bloody spikes sticking through Perry's shirt.

He started screaming in short bursts until he passed out on the floor, doing a remarkable impression of a starfish.

~//~

Hold on!

And he reported all of this back to the Department of Health… That's not just a dramatic haha cliffhanger. This actually will affect future chapters. 

Ok now we're done.

  * _Impaled by Swinging Chandelier_




	17. Drowned by God

When Jay's father calls, it's a _big deal_

Recall from Chapter 5 that Jay's mother died from holding in a sneeze, and his father is a god but Jay doesn't believe in god, so now he's just an orphan. Well, like any good caring father, Jay's dad only contacts him when he needs a favor.

Follow me (we're going to Jay's dad's house)

Deep, deep under the ocean, where the sandy seafloor meets the slope of the land, lies the entrance to his lair. An old door lies against the slope, and beyond it, a tunnel that leads directly beneath the beach.

That's right, Jay's father is the God of the Shore. It sounds unimportant at first, but when you think about it, it sounds very important. But when you think about it even longer, it's unimportant again. He mostly mitigates fights between the Ocean and the Moon, but sometimes he starts them.

Deep below the shore is his lair. It's the size of a two-car garage, smells like a two-car garage, and looks like a nostril. A small child runs around screaming. Jay's dad leans against one wall, talking into a corded phone. He looks _pissed_.

"I can’t take it anymore. I need you to watch your little nephew for one night, _please!_ " Jay's father is better at to-the-point exposition than I am.

At the Sea Chantey pool, Jay is for once actually doing his job: lifeguarding. "Dad, this is NOT a place for children." Jay emphasizes. A couple parents overhear this and pull their kids out of the kiddie pool.

"Great, I'll drop him off at the boardwalk in one hour. And son… I'm proud of you."

"You're not my real dad!!" Jay shouts as the guests scamper out of the pool area.

~/~

Exactly 59 minutes later, Jay totally forgot about the kid. He was hiding in a vent with Brock, Marley, and Claire, right over Perry's office.

Several representatives from the Department of Health had quietly entered the office twenty minutes ago, as well as a police officer.

"I'm telling you, they're trying to kill me." Perry said in a hushed voice, while his employees listened closely from the vent above.

"Do you have any proof?" A man from the DoH asked. He had a red mustache.

"Stick around and you'll find all the evidence you need. They do it nearly every day." Perry gave a cocky grin.

"D…Do you smell something?" The cop asked.

Marley, Brock, Jay, and Claire quickly backed away from the vent, knowing it was definitely one of them that smelled. They scurried back to the vent above their break room and dropped into the room.

"This is so bad, dude." Brock said. "We've _definitely_ killed Perry before."

"How can we get arrested if we're stuck here by the cuss?" Jay asked.

"We can't." Claire said. "If we go any further inland, we'll die within 24 hours. And if we get caught killing Perry here, the cops might just shoot us."

"So we can't kill until they're off our backs. That should be easy, right?" Jay said.

"Waiting isn't the problem." Marley said. "Wilson Perry is a _very_ determined man. He gets what he wants by any means necessary. And I don't think he wants the cuss lifted."

"You realize you're saying he _likes_ being killed every day." Jay pointed out.

"No, he likes being _immortal._ " Claire jumped in. "As soon as the cuss is lifted, we're all free to go and he loses his power."

"Of course he wants the cuss to stay. I mean, look at this place: he runs a business and owns this plot of land, has a small staff who never leave and never get paid, the girl he's trying to win back --Monaco-- is captive here, and we're virtually untouched by government influence or updated technology. This is every old white dude's nostalgic wet dream! It's the 50s, baby! It's pretty terrible." Marley said.

Jay opened his mouth to talk, but Claire cut him off, "He never thought we'd actually get to 1000 kills without killing ourselves first! That's why he didn't care until now. There's only 34 kills left, he must be starting to realize we could actually do this!"

Marley slapped some floor plans on the table. "We gotta figure out how to lose these cops."

The other three leaned over, but quickly realize the floor plan was actually a map for a massive railroad system beneath Wyoming, with clearly-labelled bombs placed strategically to implode the land in the shape of a VERY hungry caterpillar.

Marley noticed them staring and quickly swiped it away. "Sorry, gotta return that to the Pentagon. I mean uh--- pentafriend. I was just trying to make a point, I didn't think you'd actually _look._ "

"Bigger problems," Claire said, peeping her head out the door. "They just left toward the lobby, where Kyle and Baxter may or may not have a trap set up involving a hot air balloon and decapitation by centripetal force."

Marley, the mechanic/engineer/self-proclaimed scientist, had no idea centripetal is a real word.

The four of them burst out of the room and ran to the lobby, skidding to a stop when they realized it was empty.

"Shit. They could be literally anywhere." Claire said, not quite using the word 'literally' correctly, but still more accurate than how most people use it.

Jay started to hyperventilate. "We're gonna get arrested. And they'll take us away in a cop car. And outside the barrier, we'll die miserably in 24 hours. I don't wanna die!"

"Relax, they have no evidence _we_ had anything to do with this." Claire said. "Just Baxter and Kyle will die miserably."

Jay looked ready to pass out. Fortunately, nobody learned anything from the first aid seminar last chapter.

"And I'm fine with that." Claire continued, heading the other way to get a margarita.

Marley hooked Claire's elbow and spun her back around, "We're not leaving them. Start looking. I'll take--"

" _They went thataway._ " said a decorative skull from the table Jay was leaning on. It's eyes flickered in the direction of the back door.

That's when Jay passed out.

"Like, thanks man." Brock said, dragging Jay toward the door.

As it would happen, everyone _was_ outside. Which really, given that the people they were looking for were supposedly in a HOT AIR BALLOON, should have been the first, and ONLY place they looked.

They sprinted toward the end of the dock, where Kyle was escorting Perry into a hot air balloon basket. The officers stood on the shore, looking on. One of them recorded on a cell-phone camera.

Marley reached them first, grabbing Kyle and Baxter by the shirt collars and hauling them away from the basket. "Ix-nay!" She hissed.

"I don't speak Patois!" Baxter grunted.

"We're not running the hot air balloon today." She said in case someone was listening.

"Why not?" Kyle whined.

"Bad wind." She said, but nodded toward the men on shore. "Instead, let's make sure our _police officer_ friends over there have a nice dinner prepared for them, hm?"

"You mean like with the meat grinder and Pe--"

"No! No, like a nice _vegetarian_ pasta with some seasoned _they're here to arrest us_."

"That's on the breakfast menu, they can't have it anyway--" Baxter started.

"Hello? Are we gonna start the ride?" Perry called from the basket, hovering about a foot above the dock. "I'm ready, my loving most wonderful employees."

"Oh, bite me." Marley shot.

"Oh my god!" Baxter pointed at the shore. "There's cops! They were gonna arrest us if they saw we're planning to ki--"

Just then, every creature around went silent, the wind stopped, and the space between sea and shore opened up beneath their feet, the earth rumbling and tossing them to the ground. The shore, completely dry, was now a good 20 feet away from the ocean, where water spilled into the beyond in a steady streaming waterfall.

"Jay!" A wet voice bellowed from within.

Jay, who had been unconscious, immediately jumped to attention. "Dad!?"

A small child was thrown screaming from the massive rift and into Jay's arms. Which knocked him flat on his back.

"I said take your fucking nephew."

The ground rumbled again, and began to seal itself back together. The wind whipped, and everything not grounded was sucked into the deep watery hole; birds, drones, chitty chitty bang bang, and --hello-- a _hot air balloon._

Perry disappeared screaming into the abyss as the Earth sealed itself back together. 

Everything was stilent for a moment as the waves slipped back into their normal rhythm, spreading water over the shore as if nothing had happened. Wind and animals slowly came back, while everyone else kinda just stared.

Brock summed it up nicely, "The fuck?" 

One of the officers took out a handy dandy notepad. "Wilson Perry, death by natural causes, 7:02 pm."

The other officers hastily agreed and scurried back to their cars, not wanting to mess with whatever _that_ thing was.

"Dude…" Brock started, "Was that your dad?"

"Yeah."

"What was?" Claire asked. "That thing that just ripped the earth apart?"

"He's a god." Brock clarified.

Everyone looked to Jay for confirmation that his dad is a god.

"Well, I'm an atheist, so I don't believe any of what just happened." Jay picked up the kid by the ankle and walked off.

~//~

Today may have been a loss for Perry, but as he respawned the next morning, he headed to his basement office and pulled a locked case out of a desk drawer. Twisting the key and lifting the rusted lid carefully, he took out an old leather notebook and opened it.

Yes, Perry has an entire cute little novelty notebook and only used one page. He's just like you and me. Except for a few key ways.

At the top of the page, scrawled in pen, read, " _False Kills"_ with several tally marks beneath it.

Perry added a tally, bringing the total up to six. He closed the notebook and set it back in the box, alongside another book, titled _Legend of The Cuss._

~//~

_17(?) Drowned by God_


End file.
